Why Private Education Shouldn't Get a Cent from Government

Catherine with such a large chip on your shoulder it's a wonder you can walk straight.
A few facts:
- many people with more money than you could shake a stick at, send their kids to free education rather than paid (just as they only take out private health insurance if forced)
- many families go without to scrape together fees to fund private education - it's a fallacy to presume all private school student parents are 'rich'
- plenty of kids who attended public schools have achieved very high levels academically, just as a significant number of kids who left school early, have led very successful lives
It would be a good idea for you to remember that those earning top incomes are already paying far more tax than those on low incomes. How many times do you want to make them pay for others?
Do you include Catholic schools in your diatribe? Because parents of kids attending Catholic schools are paying for their own kids education plus subsidising free education (due to the much lower level of govt funding)
Your article would have been much better without the nastiness & bitterness and does nothing to foster an objective debate on the issue of school funding.

thank you.

As a british person living here I find it amazing that private schools get any public funding. This doesn't happen in the UK (other than tax relief) and as far as I know it doesn't happen in the US. That someone on a small salary should pay tax that could go towards a rowing scull at a private school seems fairly unjust. I wonder if there's information anywhere which shows the level of public funding to private schools by country?

Hi. I like your article and Dave Neil's in the Sunday Age. The principle of taxpayers funding public education (only) is to my mind, really sound and right. Health and education need to be publicly funded to improve society, address needs and prevent widening disadvantage. I have always held this view. Pay for private if you can and want to. I went to a private school, so did my partner. We will not be sending our kids to private schools because (a) we can't afford it due to mortgage costs (b) I do not want my boys to go to a catholic school due to the religious values taught and my partner does not want them to go to a jewish school due to religious ideas taught. We would consider a scholarship to a private school if we can. I guess an angle to this debate is that some people (like us) have such big mortgages that public schools are only option. I am hoping that there are more people like me who are jacked off by Gillard and Abbott recent comments. susan

@ Eva, it doesn't happen in any other country in the world. @Fiona, I for one thank god Catherine is as passionate as she is about this issue, this kind of inequality deserves a passionate response because it is WRONG on so many levels. Nobody is saying that every parent sending their kids to a private school is rich, we're saying it's their CHOICE, and taxpayers should not have to pay for that choice. Most parents sending their kids to public schools don't have the luxury of choice. Do you get that?

Catherine you have made some valid points that are lost amidst the ranting diatribe you have spewed at your audience. Yes there are private schools for those who really do value education and there are public schools for those wish to support the socialist ethos that we are all equal (actually there is good grounds to believe we are NOT)in talents, abilities and life circumstances, don't want to pay for their kids' education and for those who just send their kid to the nearest available school whatever. As someone who grew up in the outback and had to go to boarding school at great financial strain for my parents, I resent your offensive suggestion that those of us who attended boarding schools or other 'elitist' private schools are narrow minded, insular snobs who can't possibly have an intelligent thought in their heads and we are so ' privileged' as to not understand poverty or hardship. It is you who needs to get a grip on reality, not Abbot. Many of those students who are 'privileged' to attend private schools do so because their parents worked darn hard, do not play pokies,drink smoke or live indulgent lives. They want their kids to be someone and make something of their lives. Don't get me wrong. I am passionate about education for all and I believe firmly in the principle that a country that does not educate its poor and underprivileged is asking for trouble. Only through education do we break the shackles of poverty and we free people to realise their potential. But we must acknowledge the sacrifices made by many parents for a private education because the government is not spending enough on education from the primary right through to the tertiary sectors.

An example of homophobia and intolerance? Are you accusing all private schools in Australia of being homophobic and racist? Have you interviewed every, private school principal to gather that data? Any valid points you made are undercut by such an indiotic assumption.

I think the debate is more complicated than public funding for private schools. Even though i strongly agree that if they are pricate schools they should be funded not from the public purse, but from private funds? Inequities in education between metropolitan schools and regional and rural schools is another area of profound inequity, but this aspect of the debate is often overlooked. If parents want to 'scrimp and save' to send children to private schools that is their choice. However, choices for families of sole parents, low income earners and non-English speaking households as well as families with children with disabilities are stymied by lack of resources and opportunities that become more available with more equitable funding arrangements. Diatribes are called for when this kind of inequity proliferates in a country like Australia!

Julia Bain I agree with your comment but why not bring the debate around to education funding as a process of addressing inequalities in the communities nation wide. We NEED or the governments NEED to spend more on education per se. I actually think private schools should not be hobbled because parents who do send their children to private schools mostly do want that bit extra and are prepared to pay for it. By the same token I believe EVERY Australian child needs an education that will support and develop their potential as a whole person and mold them into good people and citizens whether they are born here from several generations, or recent immigrants or indigenous or poor or wealthy different religions or cultures or homosexual or heterosexual. Who really gives an s-h-*-t because when it boils down to brass tacks, we are all human beings with different outlooks and opinions. Education teaches us to respect each other and trains us to be more tolerant, it is hoped.
All kids deserve to be given the chance to be someone and to have inherent skills developed.
I get sick of this whining about the private schools getting money and they do not get the bulk of education funding anyway. As a single parent of a child with a disability, I moved my child to a public school because the government funding in the public schools for children with a disability is more than 3 times that of the private schools. Do you think a child with a disability needs to discriminated against like that. Plus other factors that have impacted on my child's learning. Address the needs of those most disadvantaged and FUND education properly.

Julia Bain I agree with your comment but why not bring the debate around to education funding as a process of addressing inequalities in the communities nation wide. We NEED or the governments NEED to spend more on education per se. I actually think private schools should not be hobbled because parents who do send their children to private schools mostly do want that bit extra and are prepared to pay for it. By the same token I believe EVERY Australian child needs an education that will support and develop their potential as a whole person and mold them into good people and citizens whether they are born here from several generations, or recent immigrants or indigenous or poor or wealthy different religions or cultures or homosexual or heterosexual. Who really gives an s-h-*-t because when it boils down to brass tacks, we are all human beings with different outlooks and opinions. Education teaches us to respect each other and trains us to be more tolerant, it is hoped.
All kids deserve to be given the chance to be someone and to have inherent skills developed.
I get sick of this whining about the private schools getting money and they do not get the bulk of education funding anyway. As a single parent of a child with a disability, I moved my child to a public school because the government funding in the public schools for children with a disability is more than 3 times that of the private schools. Do you think a child with a disability needs to discriminated against like that. Plus other factors that have impacted on my child's learning. Address the needs of those most disadvantaged and FUND education properly.

I am always bemused by the characterisation of "parents who send their children to private schools" as "those who want that bit extra and are prepared to pay for it".
In many years of experience in the education sector, I have never met a parent - from any social group - who did NOT "want that bit extra" for their children. Why is it that low-income parents are assumed NOT to want the same educational quality for their children as do higher-income parents?
And how can we therefore remain sanguine about such demonstrably inequitable educational conditions being provided for different groups of our children?
Drop the public/private dichotomy: it's becoming less useful in education policy discussions, especially in the light of some public schools - in an effort to emulate more prestigious institutions - themselves becoming exclusive eg. by encouraging a degree of stratification within the government sector.
Gonski is sound in selecting - as the principle on which to launch a genuine attempt at educational funding reform - directing the greatest funding portions to the schools that carry out the hardest tasks. These will be found within the ranks of most of the 'public' schools, but not all; and many of the Catholic schools, but not all; and some of the private schools (I agree with Catherine D. that these are not 'independent' as all receive government funding) - but by no means all.

I think the Government spend per child at private school is actually *less* than the Government spend per child at Government school. You're welcome to the debate, and to a choice. But I don't think that the per-head spend per child is equivalent. The child at the Government school incurs a cost (via taxation) for the parents with child at the private school. And before you shoot me down as a right wing bastard, I earn $19.78 an hour. Before tax.

I pay for my children's education. And it turns out, for yours. And you preach "equality"? The VCE is the equality. The same bit of paper.

Catherine, I strongly believe in the thrust of your comments, although I think you are not wise to generalize about the students who attend private schools, of whatever religious denomination. I have attended both types of schools and what worries me about our system is the splitting of our society into two divisions, one of which is receiving the very best in its education, the other, overall, struggling to give its varied students an average result. I think your analogy of the police force and the security firms says it all. Those who choose private schools for their children must be prepared to pay for it; what we need is a system which will allow all children to achieve their potential without financially disadvantaging their family.

All parents pay taxes. Which means, that the parents who send their children to private schools are also paying for the children in public schools, through their taxes. How about we turn the tables and the parents of private schools refuse to pay taxes to fund the public schools because their children don't attend them.

Idiotic argument? Yes, it is but it's the same argument that's being presented by public school parents to private school parents.

I really loathe the assumption that all parents who send their children to private schools are high income parents. They are not! Some parents just choose to forgo the family holidays, that extra car etc. to send their children to a private school.

Ditto both Steve Smith and Bill Temple. The focus should be however on better more equitable funding across the board. Our children richer or poorer, Catholic,, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu or Christian, whatever disadvantage they may have deserve the best for they are our future. How we educate and mold them will make or break our nation's future.
Many private schools do teach values and whether you agree with those values or not is you choice. We are lucky to live in a democracy. You as a parent do have choices. If you really want what is offered in a private school education and that is the right school for your child, you can attain it in this country if you are a normal two parent family. It is all about priorities and lifestyle.
I honestly believe there are pluses and minuses for both private and public school educations.

how would a goat consider this dilemma of funding for private / public schools?

One important thing to consider about goats is that they don't have a schooling system so they may not understand the debate. But individual goats raise their own little goatlings. So in putting our childs safety, education and potential well being into the hands of teachers who parents don't know - Are we any better than goats? I say not.

But I also consider that goats would probably prefer smaller class sizes for their kids if forced to choose. in a well developed setting, this would allow improved parent / teacher relations.

I consider myself a champion of goats and in this capacity I choose smaller class sizes.

Catherine your article would be so much better if you kept to facts and refrained from making personal attacks on those you dislike, and ridiculous assumptions about what they think. You make some good points but they are obscured by your need to denigrate persons with whom you disagree. When will you mature enough to overcome your resentments and focus on the issues, rather than the personalities as you like to imagine them tp be.

Free Education

On all counts

Oh Jessica a woman who understands. The ideal teacher student ratio is between fifteen to eighteen students per teacher for the obvious reasons. Anyone who tells you different is lying. It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from. Stats can be manipulated and most of us know that. There are a lot of other factors in play here.

Catherine, equality in education is an extremely important goal. But you appear to advocate achieving it by 'levelling down'. What benefit does it serve to society to achieve equality by reducing opportunity for excellence? Private schools exist because the public system is not yet (I'm an optimist) adequate for many parents, and they are willing to pay a higher rate for education than some others. To suggest that it's merely a folly for the upper class is absurd and misses the point entirely.

It is completely unsupported to say that the public system suffers as a result of the existence of private schools. Private schools receive approximately 50% less funding per student than state schools when both state and federal funding are accounted for [1]. You could try to improve public education by stripping all funding from private schools. A little imagination or understanding of incentives should lead you to consider whether this might increase the number of students in the public system, perhaps even to the extent that the available funding per head in the public system goes down.

Many Australians want to see Gonski implemented, but you're way off the mark by suggesting that the root of the problem is private schools receiving funding. The Prime Minister is right in aiming towards state schools of equal quality to private schools. But nothing is improved by stripping private school funding unless it produces a significant improvement in the quality of state school education. You have implicitly suggested that it would, but have in the process based your argument on the assumption that there would be insignificant or zero movement from the private to the public system were the funding to be stripped. Argue for and promote the funding of the Gonski recommendations, but don't think for a moment that you've stumbled on the silver bullet.

1. http://aphnew.aph.gov.au/binaries/library/pubs/bn/sp/schoolsfunding.pdf, Table 5

What a great article Catherine. I think that the whole debate around private/public schools really misses the point. This is not about the parents and what they do, how much they earn and how much tax they pay, it is about the kids! It is not a child's fault that their parents are not capable, for one reason or another, of paying for private school fees. So why does our school system allow the advantage/disadvantage of the parents to be passed on to the next generation? Every SINGLE child deserves a top notch education in a fantastic and inviting learning enviroment regardless of if their parents are unemployed or on the list of the wealthiest people in the country.

I am a product of public schooling, and proud of it.
Most of my friends are advocates of social justice, but...as we are getting older and people are having kids, I've been surprised to learn how many of my friends intend on sending their kids to private schools!

One thing I do understand is that people often have fond memories of (or at least a sense of attachment to) the system they went to school in themselves. Fair enough, I feel the same. But how can anyone seriously committed to social justice send their kids to a private school?

I realise there are reasons. I've heard stories about parents who have had to move their students from the local public to private school due to bullying or lack of appropriate curriculum - and I've heard of people moving their kids the other direction for the same reason. I respect that choice.

And I KIND OF understand that some families have very fundamental beliefs about their faith, and may feel their child needs to be in a religious (Christian, Catholic, Islamic etc.) school in order to learn a very specific set of knowledge and practices.

Let's be honest though. For most parents, sending their kids to a private school is a move to get 'their kid' away from 'undesirables', away from the unwashed masses. Believing that poverty and bad breeding will rub off; "you're more likely to fall in with a bad crowd and drop out of school or get a drug habit or something if you go THERE..." or that good grades can be bought (which they sometimes can) but worse, that good grades are all there is to school!

I believe that people who engage the services of the private school system need to take a good hard look at themselves. What are they teaching their kids about judging books by their covers? What are they teaching them about work/life balance, or about what it means to be 'a success'?

If just a few parents transferred those juicy $10K and $25K fee cheques to their kids NEW public school facilities, I reckon we could level some of the resource playing field pretty quickly!

I also believe that public school students, with their tenacity, creativity, good humour, resilience and respect for diversity, will prevail. Studies show how private school kids often crumble once they hit university - public school kids are the ones that can outplay, outsmart and outwit! It just sure would be nice if politicians didn't have to so overtly kick us all the time, eh?

Some children are born more equal than other children.

hi catherine. i went to a private school paid for. by my grandparents. i sometimes wish id just gone to the local high school.
i think peivate schools, being technically not-for-profit, should publicise their costs. then we will know where they go.
transparency is needed in the debate

some of you people are just absurd with your cultural assumptions of people who attend or pay for their kids to attend private schools. if you had any real experience in such a system, you would know that people there come from incredibly diverse backgrounds and situations. their reasons for being there are vastly variable.

you are also making incredibly pointless generalisations and judgements about the effect of religious bias in private/independent schooling. yes, some people send their kids to a catholic school because they are catholic. but some just want their kids to have the chances they didn't have. many of them are poor. plus your very anglocentric analysis really undermines the experience of migrants, many of whom are absurdly poor and yet working like slaves to send their children to private schools.

strangely i can say that i don't feel strongly one way or another about the funding debate, although i lean towards a funding bias toward public schools. however many of these cultural assumptions around the people who choose to pay more for private schooling are insulting to the fundaments of your argument as much as to these people; and harks back to those class-conscious high school days where everyone tried to pretend they were the poorest or hardest done by.

A better education is not necessarily the reason people send their children to private schools, rather than public ones. Private schools offer a range of extra curricular activities that are not always available in public schools, including sport and the arts, but also including more support for students at each end of the spectrum - extra tuition for those struggling and for highly capable students. They encourage a sense of community which I'm sure exists in many public schools, but not all. And there is the issue of location - in my area there is no public secondary school - to get to the closest one would be an hour's travel and two changes of public transport. I'd rather they spend those two hours each day doing something productive or just relaxing. So let's get rid of the assumption that private schools necessarily provide better education - decisions are made around a whole range of reasons, of which this is only one.

Yeah love all the comments and your article Dev. Monash uni did a study of kids with the same VCE score doing the same uni degrees. And guess who did better at Uni? The government school kids of course. I believe that school is so much more than a VCE score, it's about the people you meet, getting involved in the community, walking to school.. All of this prepares you for life. Mixing with one sex from one social class at an elite school will give you a weird vision of the world. And for the record, the private school kids at uni always had the good drugs..they could afford them. Dave O'Neil

Yeah love all the comments and your article Dev. Monash uni did a study of kids with the same VCE score doing the same uni degrees. And guess who did better at Uni? The government school kids of course. I believe that school is so much more than a VCE score, it's about the people you meet, getting involved in the community, walking to school.. All of this prepares you for life. Mixing with one sex from one social class at an elite school will give you a weird vision of the world. And for the record, the private school kids at uni always had the good drugs..they could afford them. Dave O'Neil

All enter scores from elitist schools should be lowered by 6 points which is the increase you achieve by over spend and spoon feeding. Would quickly sort out who should get govt funded uni places. All catholic schools intergrated into the state system funded fully but not be able to charge fees and must take all comers. Would sort the mess out very quickly.

Catherine, in your drive for equality in school opportunities, are you going to remove
* selective govt high schools
*single-sex govt schools, and
*govt school that have in effect a 'selection by mortgage' whereby richies (with secular bent) keep the poorer govt students out of their kids' schools and neighbourhoods? In your socialist purity, are you going to implement a bus schooling system to transport poorer students to rich govt school ghettoes? Or is a person by definition no longer a rich, insular snob if they attend a public school?

Maybe restoring the education funding to ALL students would allow many poorer and middle-class families to choose to send their children once again to the Catholic systemic and independent schools, instead of being cattle-herded into the govt schools? It's no wonder you so desperately fear the empowerment of choice for parents that would flow from the restoration of funding to non-govt students.

The socio-economic skewing that now exists between the school sectors is the direct result of your approach of stripping education funding from some (non-govt) children whose parents' choice, philosophy and presumably religion you don't seem to agreed with?

Catherine, your bias and prejudice against those from certain socio-economic backgrounds is starkly obvious, and wouldn't hold up in a court room for more than a second. I went to two private schools and the vast majority of parents struggled and went without in order to give their kids a decent education.

The vast majority were not rich, and often one parent's entire income would go toward school fees alone.

Instead of tearing down our private schools, why don't we look at why parents are so desperate not to send their kids to our state school hell holes? Why dont we look at the difference between the culture in the schools and find out whats working so we can improve the standard of our state schools so that all children can have a decent education?

Money does not make better teachers, it does not make better people, it does not make better schools. It is the culture of the school, the lack of authoratarian relationships in state schools in particular, that drives the poor or greater standard of education and school environment.

Catherine, you assume that everyone agrees with equality. Equality is a cultural construct, it is a farce, and people are not equal and should not be treated equally, because they are different. We should be treated according to our character are and what do with our lives. Some kids are so damaged and affected that they tear others down via the insistence on inclusion for inclusion's sake, which destroys quality education in our 'inclusive' schools.

Some are predisposed for high intelligence, sporting ability, artistic genius, etc. We are not the same, we are a product of our genes and environment. The most kids possible should have the best education possible, which means not lumping in disruptive degenerates with kids who are trying to learn. It means starting to change our state schools to be something greater, and money cant buy that.

Kate obviously you believe private schools produce better outcomes then obviously those disruptive degenerates should immedoately be sent to private schools where the culture and discipline will turn them around. Obvious really .

I find it problematic that Ilana Leads assumes I do not 'value education' because I cannot afford to send my child to a private school. Even if I could afford it, I would choose not to. Is it only those on a facilitating income that 'value education' then?

We have a very high income and both have several degrees both our children have attended govt primary and secondary schools. They have both received an excellent education,with theldest at uni and one still in secondary. Can not believe some of the idiot comments from private school supporters on this site.

Hear, hear to Kelli M's comments above.

I find the divided education system in Australia a sad reflection of our society and culture. Poor government policy for decades has made this divide so entrenched that it is almost irreversible as witnessed by the recent comments of our two major parties.

I can't believe how so many supposedly intelligent people are making such significant personal sacrifice on the basis of irrational fear.

The diversity in our public schools should not be feared but rather embraced for its potential to build resilience and compassion in our young people. Some of the greatest people in history have these as two of their greatest attributes.

Many people will choose to live near a public school with a healthy culture to give the best opportunity for their kids. However a significant amount of people do not have this choice and will use the local public school irrespective of quality. On this basis there just should not be a quality issue when it comes to education.

I just wish more people would stand up collectively to turn the tide on our education divide. And wouldn’t it be great if it was led by those that currently send their kids to private school on the basis that it is poor value for money and counterproductive for creating a harmonious and cohesive society.

Wow Catherine, a few Prue and Trudes batting for the establishment in their crankily newspaper-rustling, myopic way in the comments here. I'd be surprised if they didn't get through the article without shooting a few servants or without sporadic interjections of "Oh, Tony Abbott is gorrrgeous, Prurrr!"

I fork out 30% of my hard earned money on sending my daughter to a private school.We still mix with her child care friends and every holiday catch up we notice they are falling further and further back in every way.We even notice a big difference between the parents attitudes of the old friends and the attitudes of the private school parents.Private school parents seem to push their kids harder and study on weekends.The public school kids and parents seem to have a very "lax" attitude to education.I went to a public school and the difference in quality of education is enormous.I think it is about time the public school parents start pulling their weight and start paying a bit for THEIR kids education instead of relying on the taxpayer.We care about our kids education,their manners,their future and the food we feed them.Public school parents are lax, lazy,don't put their Kids future before their own and are too busy spending their income on cigs,grog and gambling and just expect handouts.Why should we work hard,study hard get ahead in life and pay taxes for the lazy public school kids AND pay 30% of our income on our kids education.Public school parents.PAY YOUR WAY!!

Catherine I agree with your sentiment entirely, but it breaks down in practice. Private school fees are effectively heavily subsidised by the government, as you point out. If public funding of private eductation was turned off entirely, private school fees would rise dramatically, putting it out of reach of all but the wealthiest. Those who couldn't afford it would fall back into the public system. Except here's the rub - the government is paying less per student in private school subsidies than it is paying to educate them in the public system. So if all those students went into the public system it would require dramatically more funding to operate at the current standard, or standards would drop because the public system simply couldn't accommodate them. I guess you might say, increase the funding to compensate but where would you take the money from? It's very much like the public vs private healthcare debate - the last thing the government wants is to force people out the private system into the public system because it couldn't afford to fund all the extra patients in a system that is already under strain. This is the real reason why both sides of politics pander to the private school lobby - it's simple pragmatism.

I agree wholeheartedly with Catherine's views on this issue. I attended 12 schools and left school at 15 years of age. I also attended and was subsequently expelled from one private Sydney girls school for a most ridiculous reason (on paper it was because I had dyed my hair! In reality it was because I was outspoken about certain things like religion and had many opposing views concerning their ethos. Indeed if I wasn't achieving so well academically and winning for their debating teams and in their public speaking competitions state wide I do believe they would have drummed up some other ridiculous excuse to expel me far sooner than they did.)
I cannot begin to describe to you the great yawning gap in the facilities between a school like Kambala Church of England Girls School in Rose Bay, Sydney and say, Plunkett Street Public School in Woolloomooloo, Sydney. They are like 2 different planets: planet poor and undernourished and planet rich and spoilt for choice.
I'm heartened to hear of Finland's remarkable about face>
Please excuse me, my computer is over 10 years old and some of the keys are jammed, hence the inability to type a full stop> And so I'll stop here after saying, bravo Catherine, love ya work!

Grant I understand your argument and many thanks for airing it. What do you think though of Finland's education about face that Catherine wrote about? In my opinion I do believe that Australia ought to look to other countries who's systems work better than ours, whether it be education, transport or drug policies etc. It's really not rocket science, if it was broke and someone else helped fix it, follow suit.

Illana, please think about WHY private schools try limit access to their institutions of children with disabilities for a moment (and they do this in many ways including via funding issues and operationally etc).
Private school students primarily come from wealthy parents and a private girls' school will always have a "brother" school and vice versa with whom they organize communal dances and plays and debates et al. This brother school is ALWAYS a private school where the parents are of the same social class and economic bracket. It's no accident that they are never a sister school to a public school.
When private school students leave school they're social circles are primarily made up of the upper classes to which their parents belong. They have ready-made contacts in the upper echelons of society and in the workforce that has been carefully and with much care, brewing for their entire lives. This of course gives these silver-spooners an enormous start in life compared to those who attend public schools.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were no private schools and that education was of an equal standard for all of our children? I find Finland's solution a brilliant about face and do believe that they have set an example that Australia should make a valiant effort to adopt. For the sake of all of our children; rich, poor, disabled, foreign, you name it. Let's equal the playing field.

To continue, albeit briefly, Illana....when the upper classes send their spawn to a private school they are trying to ensure their offspring not only get a SUPERIOR education to all the plebs, but also a SUPERIOR social network which leads to SUPERIOR contacts in the workforce and of course a SUPERIOR pool from which to date and then marry and reproduce - and continue the cycle.
I've been to both a highly exclusive Sydney girls' school and many public schools. I've watched it first hand and I do believe we need to level the playing field. My point is cruel but true; these parents who send their children to private schools don't want children with disabilities, or a low income, or or or...going to school with their children. Unless of course the disabled child's parents have enough money to send them there, then they show that child off and praise themselves for including him or her into their elitest institution ( as long as there aren't too many of them fucking up the pool).
In conclusion, please excuse me, I'm not the greatest writer around but I do hope that you get my point. The point being that education in AUstralia is a ll a bit skewiff and indeed skewed in favour towards the wealthy and upper classes. Let's try and have a conversation, then let's make our pollys get off their arses, stop yapping and do something like Finland so ALL of our youth get a fair start in life, via education.

i totally agrree with you, these days public schools are just as expensive as sending your child to a private school, what ever happend to "every child dserves the right to education no matter your socioecnomic status".

i currently attend a public school and in year 12, and the fess are about 3,500 a year not including books, bulidng funds , uniforms,camps and other educationaly acitvitys . i know myself that schools are the public discriminating students because theycannot simnply afford to pay, my school in prarticular are now disadvantaging students who cannot simply pay the fees, i am one of them in particular, who has gone without an id card,school diary and the oppertunity to attend whole school sports days.
i know that many who cannot pay are people with pride and do not have the dignity to ask for help. My school in particular is having to cut cost at the expense of the students, printing money to print timtables ande work off is not able to be done unless you provide the money. My school is not even able to get funding to fix clasrooms or build better ecation facilites to benfit the the kids of our future because it is "classed" to be in area of wealth when many students of the school are not "wealthy" but choose to travel further to this area to send their children because its a good school.

I want the goverment to realise that education is the key to life and to start inporving public education because in the end these students are the future of our australia and will shape our would to come.

thnx o30

What a narrow fact bending article. definitely has an axe to grind. Probably more construtive if the author moved the focus from private vs. public to appropriate funding for schools. Gonski I understood was supposed to address this. It is important to understand that is costs the government less to educate a private school student than it does to educate a public school student. This is an important relationship to understand becasue if the private school system fails because funding is pulled and less can afford to send then significatnly more pressure is placed on the public system. Both have a place. It is also important to note that many that can afford to send to private school choose to send to public school so that they can still take those overseas trips or have those luxury items. There are also many that sacrifice these items so that they can send them to private school. This is not a debate about rich v poor, or public v. private, it is a debate about properly funding education! Easier to fund education if a significant proportion of the students have a lower cost because they are within the private system.

Thank you Catherine, what a wonderful article. If only we could be like Finland and have no private schools. I just can't believe private schools get public funding, it is disgusting!