I am always curious why the focus is continually on "school quality" which is what vouchers are about when most of the reputable research such as PISA indicates it is a minor factor in outcomes.

Voucher advocates continue to reinforce the myth of school while it is parents that actually make the difference. Which is why of course private schools appear to do better while in fact the fees may simply keep the riff raff out. as a general rule students make the school not the school the students.

Statistical evidence would suggest that if the students were randomly allocated amongst schools the overall outcomes may be better.

If the Ch 7 show "It's Acedemic" is any guide, there is no gain in the private system, over the public.

Shonga,

I don't know of any program on channel 7 that is called "It's Acedemic". I do know one called "It's Academic". Perhaps what you needed was a private school education. I didn't have one, I went to a public selective school. Since the demolition of the selective school system by the trendy lefties many people have fled to the private system as the only alternative.

Well said, Plerdsus.

Corin McCarthy is probably right insofar as she says that a coalition voucher system would be unlikely to offer increased funding to people in poorer areas. Rather it would be yet another mechanism to transfer funding to the private system while allowing the mantra of 'choice' to be repeated ad nauseum as a defence.

If vouchers are a good idea they can not effect much change in the quality of educational outcomes unless they do take into account the resources available to the children including some realistic method of evaluating needs. This would most likely have to involve some kind of means test including both family income and assets rather than the discriminatory 'postcode' method of allocating funding as at present. On top of this there would need to be provision for those children with genuine special needs. Most of these children now are found in the State and Catholic systems where they are under-resourced.

This is a complicated matter and if an equitable solution is to be found, there must be open discussion and decision making free from ideology, something which I think is unlikely in either of the major political parties at present.

I must admit I find it very hard to discern any legitimate reason why someone would be against school vouchers. All proponents are asking for is that the money governments otherwise spend per child be given directly in voucher form to the parents to spend on the school of their choice.
If it should cost more then yes, use means testing. The whole concept of welfare is to be there for the poor, so I don’t think it is that outrageous to ask the wealthy to pay for their own children’s education.
If it would still cost more as students in Catholic and other non-elite schools currently receive only half the average education share in funding then that is hardly a reason to deny the voucher system. The fact that the govt has bypassed it’s education commitment to all moderate income families before now is no justification to continue to do so.
I find the argument that proponents of vouchers are just fanatical ideologues of ‘choice’ very interesting. One may ask the questions: Do they also make that statement in the abortion debate?; If the ideology of choice is a pretty much universally accepted one, (hands up those who are against choice in marriage, getting a job, buying a car, where you live, how many children you have, which religion you embrace, appointing politicians) then why not introduce it?
Where I really find the irony however, is that those against vouchers seem deep down to have an antipathy towards the whole concept of private education. So while they appear to oppose vouchers because they hate the ideology of private education, they have the temerity to label proponents as ‘ideologues’ despite them wanting parents to have vouchers so as to spend at either private OR state schools.

The research Shonga refers to was conducted by Professor Barry McGaw. He confirmed what was already strongly attested in the literature on school outcomes, that the major factors correlated with student success are the eduction level of the mother and the wealth of the parents (in that order). But he went further, claiming that the figures show that the differences between student performance from different schools are explained entirely by these two factors.

That does not mean that schools make no difference. It might be, for instance, that well-educated parents choose schools more successfully, that they have more choice than others (being congregated for the most part in cities), or that they have more influence on schools and on how their children are treated. It does mean that claims about independent principals are likely to be nonsense.

There has been a long debate and a substantial literature about schools and choice. A good start for those not wanting to re-invent square wheels would be Education and the Marketplace, a collection edited by David Bridges and Terence McLaughlin, both distinguished researchers.

There was a lengthy study of VCE results in Victoria which showed that major differences are brought about by individual teachers. Schools would typically have a period of some years in which the results would be excellent in a particular subject—history for example. Then the standard would drop. The pattern was repeated across subjects and in many schools. The explanation was that during the period of success, an excellent teacher taught the students in their final year or two years. When the teacher left, the standard dropped.

Arguments for the voucher system suppose that parents will have a choice of schools. Only those who live in big cities, and can afford the time and cost of ferrying their children across the metropolitan area will have real choice. Poor parents and those whose time is short because of their working conditions will not. If students are withdrawn from a school being seen as under-performing, the remainder will be left with residualised schools.

There are arguments concerning the capacity of parents to choose schools. Typically, parents only learn about the purposes of education and its complexities in the course of their children’s schooling. They are likely to be deceived by charlatans, as parents are at present by the nonsense claims made by the principals of some private schools about the values they alone teach--or indeed by the views about the worth of private schools which McGaw attacks. Many parents may limit their children’s options, for lack of knowledge or from prejudice, as they used to in the days when we had technical high schools and “domestic science” high schools. There is a need to protect the students from their parents.

The principle of caveat emptor in inapplicable. It is not the parents who will have to suffer the results of bad choices.

Some evidence will have to be required of schools, for parents to be able to choose. Whatever test is used, it will lead to teachers teaching to the test in order to safeguard their jobs, to the detriment of the education the children are given. There is a good deal of experience in the UK of this problem, where the existence of league tables leads teachers to concentrate on students of marginal performance, giving far less time to poor ones and better ones.

Decisions about school curricula have major impact on the kind of society we have and the kind of people who live in it. Such decisions are thus political. They should be made in the most democratic way possible. But parents are only a section of society. They should not have all the influence

Thanks for the comments. I agree that parental background matters, however I would arguie that if parents engage in choice they will begin to become more aware of opportunities for their kids.

Differntial vouchers empowering the less well off would give parents and students a stake in their education. There is also a wide capacity for parents to invest sums left after school is bought in a wider education toolkit, especially if public schooling is chosen.

Also there is a clear political element to this policy and I think if done with differential vouchers it would be potentially very very popular. In the best sense of the word - this is genuine "devolution".

Also I agree it is best limited to urban areas where a market can exist.

I think opponents are also missing the potential micro-economic reforms that would come of a system where schools competed hard for resources, were able to innovate, and improve.

Cheers again,
Corin

Advocates of vouchers, (especially when they are differential and means tested) claim that their introduction will result in equity. This cannot be the case whilst schools continue to charge fees, unless the voucher allows even the poorest students to access the schools of their choice, including those that charge the highest fees.
Does anyone believe that governments would be prepared to administer a sliding scale differential voucher system based on existing school fees? If this happened, surely students would make multiple applications to enrol in schools, in their order of preference, and there would still remain a selection process, administered by the schools themselves. Does anyone believe that high fee charging schools would lower their fees if a voucher system was introduced? Or believe that schools would not continue to select the most "desirable" students?
My thinking is that a government funded voucher would simply "top up" parents own financial contribution and that many schools would still be out of the financial reach of many families.
The only way a voucher system could be equitable, is when school fees are prohibited, and governments provide all children with a financial entitlement that does not require any parental top up. I can't see this happening, so let's not kid ourselves on the equity issue!

The problem advocates of school vouchers consistently fail to address is that education, unlike most goods and services on offer in the market place, is both an experience good and a positional good.

The former means that the quality, or otherwise, of the education one has consumed does not become apparent until after it has been completed. This means that one is not in a position to exercise informed choice in the education market until it is too late.

Crucially however, education is consumed only in part for the skills and abilities it provides. What matters most to many consumers is the relative advantage conferred by succeeding where others have failed. Thus consumers of education will continue to seek success at the expense of others, a problem that a free market in education will merely exacerbate.

Dave S: What strange things to say. We don’t know if the school we chose was a good one until after the years we spent there, so therefore we should not even be allowed back our own taxes (as vouchers) to try for something better? This implies that state schools are equal to the average private school. Source? This also implies there are no well established private schools with reputations for good (highly paid) teachers, deep pocket resources and high level academic results.
You’ve got me stumped on “consumers of education will continue to seek success at the expense of others.” Admittedly I don’t actually know what you mean, but how could one student suffer because the parents of another bother to use their voucher to go looking for a better school even if it might mean topping up the fees with a few bucks of their own?

I worry about comments that people, especially parents, cannot, or by implication, possibly do not, make sound informed choices, and that someone else, like government should make those choices for them. This denies the quality of the education system that most people attend, that of State / public Schools. If education in Schools cannot support its students to prepare for life by being able to research and find the information they want, in an information age, and ask the questions necessary, to make informed decisions, what is its purpose? To suggest that most parents are not responsible is nonsense. To suggest most parents should be judged by the actions of a few is also nonsense. There ought to be, and probably generally is, a partnership and joint decision-making between parents and their student children in making choices about the Schools that most suit their principles, values, personal convictions and educational requirements.

An analysis of the Schools' marketing relative to their reality and their claims, might lead to the conclusion that fair trade practices of accurate advertising by companies, as administered by the ACCC, ought to also include education and schools. The recent publication in Queensland of league tables of schools and their relative students' acheivements of OP scores clearly revealed the disparity in outcomes even between State Schools, run by the same government department, staffed and resourced according to that same government department's policies. Publishing this comparative chart encourages people to make choices between the differentiated State schools (even though, by itself, it is a flawed basis for making decisions about what is suitable education).

If vouchers are the only popular sign on the horizon that empower people to make real choices in education, then it ought to be supported. Without bureaucratic support though, any new system such vouchers, like other educational innovations over the years, is likely to fail, because it would be outside their current comfort zone, that does not link accountability to parents' and students' satisfaction with the educational outcomes. It might also lead to politics being taken out of the curriculum.

Regards, Derek Sheppard

So DaveS is this Economics 101 theory? People are therefore robots, and once having made a decision are on the conveyor belt, and can't and don't constantly view or connect with the world around them, until it is too late, and they're already manufactured into the little parts of the big economic machine they've been programmed for?

This sort of theorising makes little sense.

It gives no credit to the intelligence, abilities and decision making power of people, or the changes and adjustments they make constantly.

People want to succeed, but their measures of success will be different and will not necessarily match yours which relates their success to the failure of others.

Your statement completely underestimates the capacity of parents and young people. It suggests that education, in itself, in schools, is disempowering, and leads to disempowerment. Perhaps this is so according to your experiences, but not according to mine - but then, I made informed choices with my children, which they're all benefitting from.

Claiming individuals' choices as always being at the expense of others, also exercising their free will, is a narrow, and I would suggest politically influenced, view of the world.

Regards, Derek Sheppard

Derek,

The use of ACCC oversight is a very worthwhile addition and one that is timely. It is something I should have dealt with in the article but did not have the forsight to consider: great stuff.

Cheers,
Corin

I read with interest the direct responses to my posting. One admits to not being able to understand my reasoning and the other presumes to have deduced underlying political motives .... and all from such a brief posting :-)

It is abundantly clear that judging the quality of education is intensely complex, however much governments might wish to reduce it to league tables. To recognise this is not to denigrate anyone's ability to make a choice of school. It is also clear that information upon which judgments may be made is asymmetrically distributed, as is the ability to act upon judgements of relative school ‘quality.’ The Chelsea Tractor brigade may have the time and money to ferry their kids across London to the school of choice but this option is not open to those only able to walk their kids to the neighbourhood school. I imagine the situation is worse in isolated communities in outback Australia.

As for the meaning my contention that education is a positional good consider the following. There is a limited number of places to read e.g. Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford. This results in entry becoming a zero-sum game, if one of my students is offered a place, it means someone else will not be. Further evidence may be seen in the recent demands by UK universities for prospective candidates for law, medicine and history to take additional entrance tests because there are ‘too many’ students getting top grades in the British A level exams.

What truly empowers parents is an education system that ensures all neighbourhood schools are sufficiently resourced to enable them to maximise the potential in all our children.

As for having a politically influenced view of the world, does not Derek simply mean he thinks I have a different perspective to his own? I'm sure I do!

I wonder just what the motives of voucher proponents really are. Those who make no pretence that they are doing anything other than seeking to give their own children a better chance than the next person, are at least being honest.

Dave S

Can anyone reading this thread understand what David S is getting at? I believe he is against vouchers but I’m still trying to figure out why?

So far I’ve got that choosing a good school is not always easy. Yes, I’ll agree to that. Also some parents in outer areas won’t have such a plethora of choice. Yes also agreed, but considering vouchers mean that students can go off to private schools or STAY at the local government one, what on earth is his point?

Also something about students will have to study harder to get into Oxford or the higher level courses at most universities (how come the Arts subject History is in there with the tougher courses?) I don’t see how vouchers would lead to tougher entrance exams and even if it did, why is that a problem? Isn’t it a good thing for the educational health of the nation that is should be hard to get into specialised schools rather than just being able to walk in? Conversely, if there are increasing numbers who would be competent and prepared to study medicine and law then why not invest more resources into the schools to allow more students? Surely the nation will benefit from more doctors and lawyers. (well at least the former)

Anyone alleging to comprehend Dave’s reasoning please post soonest

Corin,
I have constantly wondered why education has been coralled off from other industry reforms. For instance, despite the agreement of all the State and Federal Ministers to the Adelaide Declaration of Nationals Goals in Schools for the 21st century, there doesn't appear to be reports on the States' attainment of the goals. Curriculum is the prime focus of most Ministers, but there are another 17 goals that are as worthy, but seem to get far less attention. What's the point of setting goals, if there aren't benchmarks and consequences for non-achievement? Isn't that where the Ministers are taking Schools and Students? Where is their adherence to the same principles? Why aren't the National Goals reflected in Federal and State legislation? If they were, at least it might provide foundation educational objectives that cross parochial State borders.

Further, the States maintain continuing conflicts of interest. Politics interferes in their view of education, and who, in their opinion, ought to be delivering it. Choice in education and Schools is simply and obviously a freedom that ought to be a high objective of democratic life. Labor governments are biased in favour of State or public Schools. The States reacted with a raft of new legislation and inquiries into private Schools following the introduction of the SES funding model by the Federal government. The new legislation has limited parents' right to choose, and by imposing added restrictions on private Schools, made it far more difficult for new innovative models of education to emerge, when we need them most. It seems the States believe that they have developed the best model of education in their State / public Schools, and are seeking to superimpose this model on private schools. Obviously, however, people believe otherwise and continue to move their children into private Schools that accord more with their principles, values and personal convictions. The conclusion must be drawn that parents are prepared to spend more of their money (in addition to the taxes they already pay) to assure the education that they perceive is best for their children.

Regards, Derek Sheppard

In the opinion of a growing number of people, the States do not have the answers, and that State / public Schools are not the best model of education. The States need to release their controls and allow and support parents and their Student child/ren to make choices through inquiry, based on accurate information from a range of different education providers and models. People make choices and decsions all the time, so it shouldn't be so difficult. This will not lead to the perfect matching of parents, students and schools, but they then also have the choice to withdraw and find a more suitable School. State Schools obviously don't provide a perfect match - they simply don't fill the needs of all people, their aspirations, principles and values, and people now look elsewhere and leave. I would suggest that encourages learning, development and progress within the sector, even perhaps at the expense of some contractions. Vouchers are likely to empower people to enable the exercise of choice. However, it can only happen with States releasing some of their legislative and bureaucratic stranglehold on non-State Schools.

Funding by the States favours State / public Schools. Yet, the States have responsibility for both State and private Schools. State Schools are their prime responsibility for funding, resourcing and investing capital. I wonder why the education industry is treated so differently than companies in other sectors so that truth in advertising and fair trade practices, especially with regard to promises, are not supervised independently of government, by the ACCC. In other sectors, action is taken to dissuade monopolistic practices. State Governments control both State Schools and their only competitors, private Schools. State Ministers have the final decision-making power, and their biases prevail. There are few other sectors where this happens. National Competition Policy was aimed at increasing competition and dealing with situations where governments favoured state run institutions over private providers. Yet, State governments have continued to reduce the singularity, identity and potential of private Schools through restrictive legislation, clearly aimed at turning the tide back in favour of State Schools.

Regards, Derek Sheppard

School vouchers have nothing to do with the free market and competition, and neither does public education, for that matter.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/091800-103.htm

I have argued and explored this point several times at:

petaldavid.blogspot.com

There are alot of private schools out ther which need funding by the government, I myself have been in private schooling all my life think there is most definatly a division in the quality of education in the public system compared to private.
Recently my sisters were changed from private to public and the differance is unbeleivable. On my sisters first day her hair was pulled and she said that the other children were extremely rough and swore alot (year 4 students). The difference between quality of teaching in noticable aswell, the teachers at public schools see bullying, give the child a slap on the wrist and no lesson is learnt. (Maybe a result of class sizes).
Private schools pay good teachers good money to provide each child with an individual education, Im not at all critising public schools and saying there bad but I beleive there is alot if work which needs to be done.
I think there should be a system put in place where the private school looking for funding from the government, should be assesed and there should be an eligabitlity "test" put in place. This will ensure that funding needed for public schools is still there and only private schools in need of funding will get it.
In the end, there is a difference and now days your paying for an education.