Christianity is about Christ who said “…he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed...” (Luke)

So Christ would not approve of Caesar (government) funding of Christian schools. The funding should come from Christian churches

Philip: Fine, but Caesar also didn't tax people at a marginal rate of 45% + Medicare, or even a marginal tax rate of 15%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_Australia

http://www.unrv.com/economy/roman-taxes.php

"In the late 1st century BC...each province was required to pay a wealth tax of about 1% and a flat poll tax on each adult."

Huh! We should be so lucky!

Shorbe, you might be interested in this link to work by economist Andrew Leigh. He attempts to quantify the cost to parents from having to buy houses near good schools. He says:

"We find that a 5 percent increase in test scores (approximately one standard deviation) is associated with a 3.5 percent increase in house prices. Our result is in line with private school tuition costs, and accords with prior research from Britain and the United States.".

The link is http://andrewleigh.com/?p=268.

shorbe, You can not simply compare taxation habits across national histories. What one got for their 1% taxation by the Romans was no where near the cradle to grave socialist blanket demanded by Australians today.

Sloppy educational habits stay with the students for their life time. Students that are taught what to think and not encouraged to learn how to reason do not in the main at a later date acquire the ability to reason via osmosis. Which is why in the '80's the left controlled Teachers Associations adopted the EQ over IQ. Which is why studying any college or university curriculum finds them heavily weighted with social programmes. Public school teachers can barely get a class year out the door proficient in the 3R's. This is not my complaint but, something frequently on the front pages of our newspapers. Give the Teachers Union credit though. They're always right there with an excuse. Which is much easier than being proactive using reasoning skills to problem solve

I wouldn’t send my children to a private Christian school if they paid me.

I find it hard to deal with in the first place that my tax dollars are being spend on schools that are discriminating against certain groups of people.

Look what is stated on the website of the Anti Discrimination Board of NSW:
http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/adb/ll_adb.nsf/pages/adb_general
“Private educational institutions are allowed to discriminate against people because of their sex, marital status, age, homosexuality, transgender status or disability. However, they are not allowed to discriminate against people because of their race. In addition, they must not allow or tolerate sexual harassment.”

Wonderful, how the government is supporting discrimination within religious schools.

My children might have had to hold toilet doors shut for others who were on it because they were all falling off their hinges, they might have had to scrape blue tack off the windows and walls so the teachers could re-use it, they might have suffered from extreme temperatures so high that a girl fainted and the teachers were walking around with plant sprayers to cool down the children while the dept were still making up their minds about installing air conditioners, but at least they talked about discrimination and were taught about equality, at least their school dealt and talked about with issues such as homophobia.

To be continued…

Continued…

Now compare that with the new EU Declaration (Brussels declaration) https://www.iheu.org/v4e/html/the_declaration.html and you will see how far Australia is socially lagging behind.

* “We affirm the right of everyone to adopt and follow a religion or belief of their choosing. But the beliefs of any group may not be used to limit the rights of others.”

* “Parents have the right to impart their own values and religious beliefs to their children but states have no obligation to support them in doing so. States do however have a responsibility to provide information and education about all religions and widely-held beliefs.
Teaching that one religion is the truth whilst ignoring all others, or teaching that they are false, is not education but indoctrination."

* "The public funding of faith schools must be called into question since they can be both socially divisive and discriminatory. Governments should ensure that in both state and privately-funded schools, all students have access to education about our common heritage and our shared values and ethics.”

Runner, even IF condoms were handed out free at schools, a number of unwanted teenage pregnancies, abortions and HIV infections could be prevented. Wouldn’t that be a positive thing?
And if teenagers happen to be drug addicts, I would support free needles as well as long as the addicts were under supervision and participating in some withdrawal program. Clean needles will prevent infections. Ignoring teenage sex and drug problems is not going to make the problem disappear.