My main obsession, in fighting “a rearguard action to retain a degree of universalism, especially on merit goods like health and education”

Here are two people who profess to want a smaller government sector but put their hands out with the best of them to get to the public purse in this matter.

In this they are far worse than the misguided people at LP

What a devastating intellectual critique, Homer. Completely unanswerable of course. The last word in fact. I hereby award you the bogmeistercommenter award of 2006. Your years of blog shit-stirring have had a transforming effect on the blogosphere. Transformed it from a promising method of intellectual discourse to a 2000s version of the CB world of the 1990s. (I mean blogmeistercommenter of course!). Arise Sir Homer.

Private schools are only private if they do not get money from the Government.

Cmon JC don’t desert your principles”

Homer, You’re hijacking terms and meanings. Middle class welfare has nothing to do with the fact that we pay a portion of taxes to educate little barbarians(most of the time I think the money is wasted but that’s beside the point). We all pay in money to fund education without an assumption of means. If you wish to change it then that’s a new social compact that needs to be discussed.

Middle class welfare? Come off it, homes.

If any entity believes they can make money providing educational services then good luck to them but why should they get any money from the State.

You are merely arguing for subsidised fees

Of course education must be State funded. What we have to decide on is whether those funds are to be applied regardless of wealth or on a means teated welfare basis. At the moment it’s neither. In fact it’s capriciously applied.

Education is provided by the State because all children need it.

If you earn the big bucks to put your children through a private school then good luck to you but don’t go cap in hand to the taxpayer to assist you.
Perhaps you need explaining on what the private sector is?

don’t actually think school vouchers are a top priority, mainly because a fully-fund voucher scheme would cost an extra $5 billion and would not necessarily achieve enough in itself to justify spending so much money.

Well it would achieve a more competitive system…the PR machines in schools would be ramped up, education would become more of a business than it already is.

We’d probably see proposals to build more mega-religious schools as the various denominations, particularly the ‘business nouse’ Evangelical & Fundamentalist ones elbowed each other in the race to accumulate student’s vouchers & tax exemption. The Secularist state wobbling as it is already, would become more divided.

Imagine the Corporate media distortions of public school results in order to scare parents off these so called ‘failing public schools’, directing stressed parents to their mates’ ‘Private Collegiate Efficiency Institute’…not too posh, all glitz & cheap hi-tech…stacked w/ coke & CC vending machines.

We’d have performance pay & Workplace reforms implemented in these private institutes that would ensure teachers could be sacked on the spot for querying Government motives & policy, or mentioning the term ‘vegetarianism’ & consequently offending the President of the Parent Committee who just wrangled the school a cosy deal w/ Southern Fried Chook.

Gaia forbid! if anyone forgot to put an Aussie flag & plaque of the Ten Commandments on their classroom wall”

At least his middle class welfare went to middle class schools and not to upper class ones.

As Oscar Wilde might have said the only thing worse than middle class welfare is upper class welfare

You are correct that the fees are going up at 5.5% per annum. But inflation is lower than 3% and economic growth is lower than that. So it is a real increase. When I enrolled my Son in 1996 the fees were k$7.5 which is 8.5% compound.

“I see any removal of transfers to government schools as a tax hike through stealth.”

Private schools are only private if they do not get money from the Government.

Cmon JC don’t desert your principles

“The school charges what the market can bear. It is at full capacity with no plans to expand. Is it not clear the effect of the subsidy in such circumstances?”

You need to look at its operating expenses and then compare that to the fees and dues intake along with the government transfer to see if the school is making do with just the fees alone. I bet it isn’t.

“And I must say that your comment “The rich should have some rights not to be discriminated against seeing they are the ones who are paying the largest share of taxes”

I certainly didn’t mean that all, or most, or even very many, of the parents of state school kids can be characterised as uninterested in their children’s education (which is how you appear to have understood my comment), but simply that such parents do exist and to the extent that they exist are almost certainly sending their kids to public schools.

cool…i’ll retract & take your word for it…upon rereading, I get yer gist…;)…put it down to a misunderstanding on my part. In this day & age, public school teachers can get fairly hairy-chested when it comes to possible criticism &/or generalisations regarding the public school system. The myths & lies promoted by our Federal Govt. have had quite an effect. Pleased to read that you aren’t a part of that weasly campaign Ken…:)

“plenty of parents who send their children to public school are interested in their children’s education & welfare” … Nasking.

Both statements are manifestly true. Nasking has gone off completely half-cocked in his (lack of) logic here.

The school charges what the market can bear. It is at full capacity with no plans to expand. Is it not clear the effect of the subsidy in such circumstances? JC: Even though (as you say) the subsidy is per student, when the school is at full capacity it becomes just a gift to Camberwell Grammar Pty Ltd. And I must say that your comment “The rich should have some rights not to be discriminated against seeing they are the ones who are paying the largest share of taxes” is beneath your usually decent standard.

We live in a market economy largely. If you think that the government has removed so much incentive that it is not worth working hard, then stop working hard. Or go to Hong Kong for a few years. It is not a matter of discrimination. It is a matter of thinking through the marginal incentive effects of policy.

Your response indicates that you misunderstood what I was saying. I’ll be charitable and assume that perhaps the words you quoted were inadvertently ambiguous, at least if read in isolation rather than in the context of the comment as a whole. I certainly didn’t mean that all, or most, or even very many, of the parents of state school kids can be characterised as uninterested in their children’s education (which is how you appear to have understood my comment), but simply that such parents do exist and to the extent that they exist are almost certainly sending their kids to public schools. Thus the presence in the public system of more children (albeit no doubt a minority) whose parents don’t provide them with educational encouragement may skew the university entrance figures as between public and private schools. You would have understood this if you had read the whole comment rather than taken the bit you quoted in isolation, because the very next sentence to those you quoted began: “Such parents (and they certainly exist) …”.

Thirdly, you would expect some disparity in favour of private schools even if the public schools in fact provide as good or almost as good an education, simply because the public schools almost by definition include all or nearly all children of parents who have little or no interest in their children’s education and provide them with little encouragement or motivation.

What a ridiculous generalization!…plenty of parents who send their children to public school are interested in their children’s education & welfare. Many even pay for after- school tutoring.

Public schools provide a diversity of disciplines, resources, opportunities”

I don’t actually think school vouchers are a top priority, mainly because a fully-fund voucher scheme would cost an extra $5 billion and would not necessarily achieve enough in itself to justify spending so much money. It’s more important to focus on the supply side than the demand side at this stage, ie giving schools more autonomy over staff, curriculum and other matters.

There is some evidence that public school students outperform private school students in university where they have equal year 12 results. For this reason, as well as equity and reversing the flow out of public education, I would like to see equalisation of year 12 results between the public sector and elite high performing private schools. Such a scheme could be likened to Affirmative Action.

A mulitcultural society where nothing is shared and where the different groups effectively live in parallel universes is likley to split into incommensurate tribes. Universal, or at least near universal public education, is a way of promoting social cohesiveness and must be presevered for that reason.

Chris, but the voucher or assistance is not offered to the school as such. In the present it is offered to the school per unidentified student- albeit on a block/special grant basis. Under voucher it would be offered directly by the student’s parents to the school in question. In both regards the school’s books are irrelevant.

It is worth considering that the rich should have some rights not to be discriminated against seeing they are the ones who are paying the largest share of taxes. Every tax dollar has an assumed carry through link to educating kids and so they also have a right that money is used to educate their kids. That’s fair. Otherwise ignoring this principle is simply a tax hike through stealth.

Do you think it is equitable for governments to cut back funding to the schools of children whose parents choose the pay higher fees to even this up, thereby effectively ‘punishing’ those parents who choose to invest in their children’s eduction?

I am glad you put the silly and emotive word “punishing” in quotes. Whenever governments rearrange spending priorities there are losers and winners. The losers are not being “punished”