The rort that the Howard Government is perpetrating on the 63% of Australians who by necessity or choice send their kids to public schools must be exposed.

Between 2004 and 2008 the Feds will spend 7.6 billion on the 13% of kids who attend the non-systemic independent schools. That’s fewer than 500,000 kids; over this same period Howard will spend 7.2 billion on the 2.25 million kids that attend public schools. Of that 500,000 students 27% attend schools where the tuition fees alone exceed the average resources provided by governments to public school kids.

The $370 million p.a Federal funding to these schools raised their total resources to 62% above the average public school’s resources. 55% of students in these independent schools attend a school where the average resource level per student is higher than that of the average government school.

In general all students in non government schools get 51% of their funding from government grants both state and federal without the accountability that is required of government schools.

Because the federal government raises the lions share of all Australian government revenue it can easily keep increasing its funding to non government schools. Because the states bear the brunt of expenditures health, education transport etc, it is difficult to expand the education budget at the expense of others.
The rort is that the Fed’s say they will increase funding to government schools in line with the states increases as long as the states comply with the Howard philosophy of life. The blame for under-funding public schools is sweetly passed on to the states; Howard is using Federalism in a manner that was never intended in order to shift public money to a private system in yet another portfolio. Meanwhile the majority of Australian kids suffer

thinks4self where did you get these figures? They are certainly not anything like the figures supplied by one state ALP government. The general thinking if reluctant view (even among die-hard ALP supporters) is that it is cheaper to support the private sector than have ALL students in state funded education and that the private sector effectively subsidises the state sector because the full cost of supplying minimum education facilities would actually be higher if it applied to all.
Of course it would be nice if ALL state schools had everything they wanted but are ALL state schools equal even?

maybe it would be better to think of children as people, the 'citizens' of tomorrow, rather than as their parent's toys or ineffectual promise of life after death.

from this view point, giving some citizens whatever head start there is in private education is clearly unfair. even worse, refusing to fund a good education for every future citizen is dangerously short-sighted national policy.

so i suggest we outlaw private schools, create a public school system as good as any in the world, and give every kid an equal chance at success, as far as education can do.

thinks4self, it's not just the schools themselves but ancillary services. Government funding to church run organisations to work with families, run counselling services etc, etc. It appears to be a massive handover of taxpayer money to churches for what from what I've seen of it is often ineffective service. The funding for chaplincy services in schools rather than additional resources to the schools to support skilled professionals to help kids.

Hopefully one day there will be an enquiry into just how much has been funneled into the churches via these dubious channels.

Will things be any different under Rudd? I understand that he is another committed christain so I am doubtfull.

R0bert