Actually, I'm not sure that vouchers would have that effect, even on public schools, not unless we did a lot more than merely hand the money out to parents rather than schools. If a school is full, its full, and if a school - though it is usually private schools that do this - does not want to take your child, a voucher won't make them do so.
That's why we need to look at so much more than vouchers and methods of funding if we want to really increase all parents - not just the fortunate ones - choice.

petal,
Fundamentally a voucher school system means that the government funding follows the child whether the child attends a government or independent school. This is precisely what happens in Sweden and Denmark. The fact that the Swedish model precludes parental co-payments and obliges schools to accept all applicants does not make it any less of a voucher system. Your charge of dishonesty is bogus and is nothing more than a straw-man fallacy. As a side-note, the requirement that schools accept all applicants has been criticised on the basis that it prevents a school from developing a specific educational ethos. Whilst it is sensible to guarantee that a school place will always be availible to a child at the cost of the voucher, parents should be allowed to put more funding into their child's education if they so choose.

As for your suggestion that Sweden's independent schools are heavily regulated, approxiametly 40% of Sweden's independent schools are Montessori or Waldorf. The Swedish model gives schools enough flexibility in their cirriculum to allow for diversity and competition of ideas.

I found an entry on your blog particularly illuminating:
"Kids really don't respond well to being shifted from one location to another on a parents' whim (which is what it often is). And please don't quote your own experience to show me that it's not the case, Joel. The overwhelming majority of kids need stability. And WHY would parents exercise choice, anyway? What about a particular school causes them to choose that school over another? VCE / HSC results? We all know how accurate THEY can be ... School uniform? Facilities? Are these accurately showing what a school can offer to a child, or are they just showpieces?"
Clearly you are skeptical about the capacity of parents to make an informed decision on behalf of their own children but are quite happy to make prescriptions about what is best for vast majority of children. When a choice has to be made about a child's welfare and education, I would leave that choice with the parents rather than government bureaucrats and the teachers' union.

snow,
As you quite righly point out, in Australia, some government funding follows a child into independent education. However, not all funding follows the child. Australia is not the system that advocates of a US voucher system want because some of the public funding is lost when the child enters a private school.

If the amount of government funding afforded to a child is reduced when they enter a private school, the child is effectively being penalised for exercising a choice. Advocates of school choice, in the US and elsewhere, beleive that there should be no such penalty. Whilst the Australia education system fosters more choice that the US education system, it is a farcry from a pure voucher system.

ena how can a public school be too full to take in a student? Public schools have more land and space than any other schools. How can a school not be in a position to pull up a chair for an out of area child in need. They have to accept as many children that move into their catchment area so they can be that FULL.

What they do is that they control who they want to ostrasize and who they dont. Sure the Private school doesn't have to take in a child but that is a private school, the public school system should be obligated to take in a public school student if they cant attend thier local school and they have no school to go to.

I say bring on the vouchers. The system segregates and that is grossly unfair.

Why should they, Jolanda?
They are no longer supported by any government, in terms of reasonable funding for the heavy lifting they do ( taking on the vast majority of the hardest to educate kids) and many so-called private schools now get as much as 90% of their funding from the public purse, more,in percentage terms, than many public schools, with absolutely no similar public obligations. So why would they, and why should they?
Public schools are now punished for taking on difficult kids - because it lowers their results and means they rate badly on "league" tables ( and are then told they are failing), and that is then used as an excuse to remove all the kids they've been successful with at year 10, so they can make the local private school look like a winner.
The people who staff public schools are just human, if there are no rewards in taking the most difficult kids, if indeed all they get is despised and criticised, you can't exactly blame them for resisting. And of course public schools can be full, they have far more limited grounds, classrooms, chairs, desks, computers, text books than publicly subsidised private schools. What on earth do you expect them to do, suspend kids from the ceiling and, what, pass the few textbooks they can afford around?
Get real Jolanda, you can't s**t on public schools from a great height and then expect them to still be around to clean up after you. We either value them, and they work, or we don't and they don't. Public schools are just like anything else, either use them, or lose them.

Ena. The Education system has a duty of care to provide appropriate education to all children as children are required by law to attend school.

That’s fine if a Public School doesn't want to take my kids, but then give me the money that is due to my kids for their education so that we can pay for a better fit. We will see if the Private schools does not take them on when we have money to pay them. We have already had to put two in a non-government schools and that has forced us to have to work more than one job.

I can come down heavy on the Public System if I like as they have totally failed my kids and I know of many others, my kids are not alone.

The public system cannot be fixed because they refuse to acknowledge that there are problems and/or deal with issues before them.

I have a problem with valuing things if they are unfair and they dont work. My kids have always wanted to stay in the public system but the system has done everything in their power to push them out and away. A school doesn’t need money to teach a kid, they just need to want to do it and I don’t buy many of the excuses.

The Liberal Government is looking after their own when they fund the Private Schools. Can’t see the Labor Government doing anything much to fight for their own. The Labor Government just produces their own bureaucratic positions to play pass the papers and wait for their fat retirement.

My kids would not have dropped the schools marks, on the contrary and they do not have behavioural issues, they are very highly intellectually gifted, very sensitive and well behaved and they have suffered so much bias, bullying and neglect in the system caused by adults in the system. I think it is a joke when a school cannot provide appropriate education for an obviously gifted kid. It’s like the bank not knowing what to do with its money.