If this unified funding system is to be truly 'child-centred', and not degenerate into a rorted subsidy scheme for private school fees, there would need to be specific regulations prohibiting schools - public and privae - charging fees for school education. And that's only for starters.

Of course leftists just love the idea of compulsory indoctrination, compulsory contributions, compulsory curriculum and compulsory teacher training. They love that every rising generation is uniformised and taught that the state has an implicit right to detain them against their will; to teach them anything it wants; to propagate collectivist beliefs in omnipotent, omniscient, all-good government; the power to threaten their parents with being locked in a cage to compel their submission and obedience; and to threaten everyone else in the population to force them to pay for it.

Education is important, but then so is food. Perhaps we should have a big government Department of Food, with a one-size-fits-all menu for the entire population, a bloated hierarchical bureaucracy in cahoots with a left-wing union, compulsory contributions from everyone whether they like it or not, and widespread food poisoning from failure to meet basic quality standards.

In the United States an important step toward racial equality was the US Supreme Court decision in 1952 that segregated schools are inherently unequal. It was a step on the road to the presidency of Barack Obama. In the US religious schools are legal, but it is against the law to provide them with any government funding.

The USA has progressed from a country where Catholics could not attain high office and a federal law against lynching could not be passed to the election of a black president and a Catholic vice-president in a country which has a majority of white Protestant Christians.

Children have a tendency to bully those regarded as the Other. They also have a tendency to accept those who they are familiar with. It is unreasonable to put Muslim children in separate schools and then expect them and their non-Muslim associates to work together as adults without attitudes of suspicion and distrust.

One of the goals of education in a democratic society is to prepare children to enter that society as adults and in a democratic country be accepted for their worth as humans regardless of their ethnic or religious background. Segregation whether by religion, ethnicity or social class opposes that goal.

The purpose of separate religious schools is not only to provide religious instruction but to limit contact with children of other faiths which might lead to intermarriage.

This should not be funded by tax money.

Any school which is supported to any degree by tax money should be supervised by a school board which is open in membership to all citizens. If my tax money goes to a Catholic or other sectarian school I want the right to sit on their school board.

I think no government funding should go to non-public schools.

Aspring voter: "I don't want my kids to drink tap water. I want them to drink bottled water."
Politician: "OK, then. Buy them some."
AV: "But I can't afford to buy them the really expensive brand. I need you to subsidise it for me."
P: "Why should I do that?"
AV: "Everyone needs water. It's a basic human right. It's not my fault that my kids need a better class of water than ordinary people."
P: "But that will cost a fortune..."
AV: "Get real. Would YOU want your kids to drink tap water?"
P: "Gee, I guess not. OK, then."

To the barricades, comrades!

If my tax money goes to a Catholic or other sectarian school I want the right to sit on their school board.

I think no government funding should go to non-public schools.Posted by david f, Wednesday, 8 July 2009 4:01:57 PM

Your contribution to Tax would have to be tested against theirs and if they paid 20 times more tax than you then that would give them 19 votes more than you at your school .......looks like a Bum Deal to me !

You should loosen up a bit and worry about things that matter like Apologizing to Aboriginals for holding an assembly at your School 'on their land' eg; reverse racism .

Another worry is Parents of State School Students are disenfranchised when their kids step onto Govt School Property ; you have no say in what happens education wise after that event . For example if your kids can't read to your expectations ; you decide to give them a few tips you find they don't know phonetics so you teach them so they like you can sound out a word like you and nearly everyone else does ; to easy you think ; not so I found out , I got a nasty letter from the Head Master advising me to but out and to leave Education to the professionals who know what they are doing . Further advising me that 'word recognition' has better outcomes than phonetics ; what crap
how then would the student ever learn to spell when they don't know how to sound out the word .

Having filled honorary positions with both State and private schools I believe that the main limiting factor for public schools is not money but the education departments that control them. In public education it is said that the teachers who can't teach are booted upstairs and I can well believe that. What I can't believe is the management overheads of the central administrations in every State and Territory.

I would like to see much more autonomy for state school principals, however at the same time the school councils should get more of a say.

The private school models have a lot to offer public education, not vice versa and there is considerable fat in State and Territory education departments that could be trimmed for that purpose. There is far too much interference in schools both public and private by education department bureaucrats and the reporting arrangements are over-done, too costly and of little discernible benefit to school principals and education delivery.

Why do all States need their own curriculums? Why can't States share resources? Why can't the very best teachers in Australia be available on line to students and through teleconferencing? These are questions that should be addressed. It is sad to see more money being wasted on computer-based education when the thinking behind it is rooted in the Eighties. While on that point, there is no-one within the various education departments, or within government who has the skills and breadth of vision to recommend action to take advantage of advances in technology. Now that is a worry.

The other extreme that is often mentioned is countries like Finland, where there are no private schools at all. The education there is one of the best in the world.

However, having spent some time in Finland, there is no incentive for the parents to contribute anything other than their taxes to their kids education. The result of which is a socialist taxation system where everything is taxed to death, and the real standard of living is much lower than the salaries might suggest.

Independent schools in Aus receive subsidies on a sliding scale dependant on the wealth of the suburbs. The average subsidy is about 75% dropping to about 50%.

The majority of independent schools charge less than $10 000 p.a. and more in the range of $7000 p.a. where their loss in subsidy reduces the total spend to just over what public schools get.

But what they do with it is what counts, as their results are overwhelming better than the public schools, as they are not suffocated by the teachers' union and gov regulation to the same extent and can hire and promote teachers based on competence not service.

The reduced subsidy enables the gov to spend less on education for far better results, and enables parents to have some say in their kids education rather than the vanilla flavoured one for all education provided by the state.

As nearly half the children in NSW are independently educated, this is a choice not made by only the wealthy, but by many middle and working class families to give their kids what they didn't have.

The abolition of the subsidies would not free up funding for public schools, as it is estimated that the majority of independently taught children would then descend on the inadequately sized public schools to receive the full 100% funding from the state.

This is why even the most rabid gov ministers such as Julia Gillard have not been moronic enough to touch the funding, as along with the negative consequences for the populace, the voter backlash would truncate their political careers.