"Rudd nearly had my vote until he stated he wouldn't seek to remove funding from wealthy private schools and redistribute to the public system."
So who you going to vote for?

There is no way any Australian politicians can stop funding non-state schools.
The Greens were amazing in their bravery? audacity? stupidity? in saying they would deny funding to 90 rich private schools. The thing is a lot of the High C of E probably vote Green; but not when their kid's education is at risk.

Lets face it we have a "haves" and "have not" system.
The best we can do is stop the worst abuses like creationism being taught as science.
Perhaps some Teretary and Tech. scholarships and bursaries would be nice.
Perhaps decent funding for TAFE would be nice. The present funding is a bad joke.
Instead of a "Future Fund" (weasel words) for politician's pensions we could have a Future fund for Education that would be nice.

Many schools in my area (Central Coast) are as poor as church mice and have to share HSC texts.
Many are just perpetuating a "looser" mentality with kids frightened to go to the toilet ( no doors or glass)
or
admit they learn a musical instrument after school (Paid for by struggling working class parents).
The Conservatorium on the Central Coast gets about $1 per student.
We recently saw 100mil spent on Sydney Con.renovations.

Justice equality forget it, the battle has been lost.

Stuff we even have style mafia
"There is no need for that many question marks. Remove them to continue." put in your own "?"

I am a firm supporter of public education. I am also dubious of the mantra of "choice in education". Here are a few stories from my own experience:

1. I went to a high school in a small country town, the only high school within 80kms in any direction. Choice? Unless you had the money to send a student to boarding-school, there was no choice.

2. My daughter has special needs and goes to a well-resourced small class (7 kids) at a state school. Choice? Until the private system offers this level of support the state system is my only choice.

3. Acquainances with a special needs child chose to send their son to a Christian school. After the child was bullied (because he was different) they had to send him to the local state school.

4. Aother acquaintance was having problems with their child at a small Christian school. When my spouse suggested she talk to the school counsellor, she said there was no school counsellor.....

These anecdotes are not proof of anything, but illustrate that some people don't have a free "choice in education". A lot of this rot about "discipline" boils down to "I want the school to chuck out any child that might do anything I don't like". Some parents make sacrifices and choose to send their children to private schools, away from the riff-raff. That's fine, but the state sysem is the only refuge for the misfits that the private system doesn't have to put up with.

Regarding a voucher system (as suggested by Stewart Glass). Are you seriously suggesting that the Federal Government double its education expenditure? Or do you think States should reduce their funding of schools? Equality of funding is either going to cost a LOT more, or lead to much worse state education. Vouchers are only popular with neocons and the NCC.

Runner, hyperbole and bile are no substitute for a logical argument. Sad really, coming from a self-professed Christian. Get back to us when you can come up with something better than a strawman story culled from the Herald Sun.

Public education is vital. So is the private education system.
Maybe the author of this tripe remembers the great State Funding wars and maybe he should consider 1- the pre funding days, and 2-the added billions it would cost the State to deliver to all those now in the private system.
One more thing Alan; the sentence"The plundering of the inclusive, government school dollar.... is unlimited" is offensive in its inaccuracy, its bias and in its intellectual paucity.
God help us all if this article is the level of debate.

stephen@csa,

you can quote all the numbers in the world, but its clear you've been up on your high horse so long that you can't actually see that THERE ARE MAJOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND CHRISTIAN (PRIVATE) SCHOOLS.

if you don't agree that consistency of education rolls in capital australia, then just say it - that's a line of argument many australians agree with. but don't fart around covering your bottom with "statistics", its just as ridiculous as quoting your line of work in "the name of god".

The problem with religious schools, is that they take little 5 year
old innocent children and brainwash them with a heap of claptrap,
for which there is no substantiated evidence and which would not
stand up in a court of law.

Many of these kids are damaged for life by all this. IMHO its
basically child abuse.

Yabby writes "The problem with religious schools, is that they take little 5 year old innocent children and brainwash them with a heap of claptrap,"

I think you meant State schools Yabby. That is why so many Politicians of all persuasions send their kids to private schools. They don't care to much about the religion taught in private schools but they hate the fruit of the religion of secular humanism taught in State based schools.