Leslie/Jane

I am convinced that your bigotry is too far gone ever to face facts, but let's try just once more.

You ask "First we need to be frank - with ourselves and with others - about why the subject of school funding gets us so hot under the collar."

WRONG! It is only YOU two who need to ask this of yourselves. The rest of us take our children out of public schools quite simply because we want to for many reasons. YOU have to accept that fact and direct your energies into fixing the diabolical public schools.

You also need to stop lying about the funding issue. Parents are nowhere near as stupid as the AEU, you and your ilk, presume.

The REAL injustice is that the highly class-based public system excludes thousands of families from being able to excercise choice and exit the public system. You would make yourselves useful and relevant if you directed your campaigning to the state education bureaucracies to loosen up funding to give these families real choice.

When I read some of the bizarre posts I wonder if I am living in the same country.

It is not only the authors who get 'hot under the collar' about private school funding. On the contrary, it is mainly private school parents and private schools who 'get hot under the collar'. Well I know this having had to read through endless letters from my children's private schools on this subject whenever it became news.

HRS, your obsession with 'feminists' is clouding your ability to make a coherent argument. Not all women with an opinion are to be feared as dreaded feminists. I know not of a single school that does not celebrate father's day, I know not of single school that celebrate womens day. Name the schools.

Jolanda has particular experiences and I do not know enough to make a comment, all I can say is that I have had wonderful and not so wonderful experiences in both the public and the private sector.

I have a very gifted daughter, and unlike Jolanda, I found the private schools unwilling to advance her, so she 'repeated' a year. Now she is in a special immersion programme in a PUBLIC school and going ahead in leaps and bounds, recently scoring 98% nationwide in her tests.

Private schools are generally well run because they have complete control over headmaster appointments and student admissions.

All three of my children have spend a great deal of their education in private schools. We pay taxes. It embarrasses me that these schools get the funding they do. Parents who want to send their children to private school can do so. Why should all other taxpayers pay for their choice?

Rather than private school funding my objection is the way private school parents, especially in the independent schools with their superior resources, are able to buy tax payer funded places in university for their children.

An example is a certain private institution in my area is able to get enter scores of 90 plus for 1/3 of their students while a state school in the same electorate does not have even one student making that grade.

Are the children that much smarter in the private school? The results showing greater attrition rates at university than public school students would indicate probably not. However greater resourses does skew the system.

I recognise there are disparities among state schools as well however there is an easy way to dole out tertiary places more fairly. If we assume the splits are 10% independent, 30% catholic, and 60% public why can't we ratio the university places in the same proportions?

Thus the private schools can do what they do best by competing with each other and the state system can do its job of providing the best universal education possible with the resourses it has available.

Under such a system I might even be persuaded to support even greater private school funding from the public purse.

Yvoon
The concept that extra funding leads to improved results of the students does not really work in reality. Once a school has a certain level of facilities, then it becomes teacher’s ability and teacher’s attitudes towards the students that is the main determinant of student outcomes.

This can be easily proven by having 2 teachers teach the same subject to 2 different classes. The better teacher will get the better results each time, even if the teachers are swapped between the classes.

If there is only a public school system, then the public school system becomes a monopoly, and if that system is closed to the public, then that system can become a brainwashing system for elements who move into that system.

In our society, the most likely element to try and use the public school system for propaganda or brainwashing purposes would be feminists, and I have yet to come across a feminist who has any great interest in males.

I have actually heard it directly said by a feminist high school principal, that they did not want too many boys going to university, as they believed that male graduates were getting more money than female graduates.

Not ironically, that principal was in a public school, and I doubt very much if they would last very long in a private school, where the parents were paying money to have their children enrolled in the school.

yvonne. The private schools did not advance my daughter. By the time I was able to return to work so as to be able to pay higher fees, as we have 4 children and I had little ones at home, my two girls had already been accelerated in the public school system although it was done against the grain, caused us so many problems and made us no friends. Of course one-year acceleration made absolutely no difference to their situation, as they were miles advanced.

I moved my children out of the public school for their physiological safety and for emotional healing and well-being. We do not send our children to school to get high marks. We send them to school to learn. If they are being taught so far below their ability that it is ridiculous and they are unhappy and asking for more and the teachers/system get upset when you bring it up and they victimise, bully and manipulate with your kids scores to discredit them and deny them opportunities and so as to avoid your complaints and punish you for you having dared spoken up then that shows at ATTITUDE in the public school system that is hostile and that is wrong.

We are not rich. My husband and I work our butts off to have our children in the Catholic system (we cannot afford private) and we are entitled to our share of taxes towards our children's education as the public system is unable and unwilling to cater for our children or even treat them like human beings.

The work wasn't that much different in the non-government system what has been different is the way my children are TREATED and that Yvonne influences everything.

The problem that I see in the public school system is the same attitude that resulted in my children being targeted and victimsed and it stems from the Tall Poppy Sydnrome. Some public school parents resent the fact that others have more than them.

I agree with HRS about the feminists that has been my experiences and that of my children.

It's evident from many of the comments that our education system is in great strife. As examples:

From HRS: "I have yet to come across a feminist who has any great interest in males."

The whole idea of feminism is to re-educate males as to the position of women in society and men's misguided views of them. If "feminists" were only to focus on women and ignore men, their goal would be completely lost! Perhaps the commenters who lament feminism's supposed "control" of the public school curriculum mean that their children are taught that calling women "chicks" is wrong, or that you shouldn't slap them around because your tea is cold - quelle horreur!

Democritus: "Once again Petal says you can save $2b by not subsidising private education. What a pathetic argument. So what! This is not a case of either / or. The $2b that the gov spends on private education is less than the gov would spend if there were no private schools."

Read the link, Democritus. In fact, READ full stop. I said that if the private school subsidies were redirected into public schools, we would have an outstanding public school system WHICH COULD ACCOMMODATE EVERYONE COMFORTABLY and it would be 2 BILLION DOLLARS CHEAPER than the current model. Private schools would still exist but they would have to do so without gov funding, which for the wealthy schools would be no problem - the outgoing Scotch principal claims that gov funding accounts for only 10% of the school's income.