Opinion Public v private school funding

[Tarkyn_24]

That is exactly what you speculated when you wrote, "If one in three of all currently enrolled independent students remain..."

That was an absolute worst case scenario detailing the breakeven cost to the public in response to GC’s quoted respective costs between public and private. Illustration purposes only to refute the claims being made that removing funding support from the private sector would have an adverse impact to the taxpayer.

(Using the quoted values per GC the breakeven point for taxpayer cost is if independent schools were to lose 72.9% of their students to the public system).

In any case, even in such an extreme situation those schools would respond to the market and rationalise. Some, not all, would shut. The fact that there are a range of price points available means that the private response to removal of government funding to independent schools would never be so extreme.

 

[sideswipe]

That was an absolute worst case scenario detailing the breakeven cost to the public in response to GC’s quoted respective costs between public and private. Illustration purposes only to refute the claims being made that removing funding support from the private sector would have an adverse impact to the taxpayer.

(Using the quoted values per GC the breakeven point for taxpayer cost is if independent schools were to lose 72.9% of their students to the public system).

In any case, even in such an extreme situation those schools would respond to the market and rationalise. Some, not all, would shut. The fact that there are a range of price points available means that the private response to removal of government funding to independent schools would never be so extreme.

Well, it aint happening, so the sad sacks who missed out will still have something to complain about.

 

[Tarkyn_24]

Well, it aint happening, so the sad sacks who missed out will still have something to complain about.

Now you’re the one sounding sour…

 

[sideswipe]

Now you’re the one sounding sour…

Was aiming for smug

 

[sr36]

Well, it aint happening, so the sad sacks who missed out will still have something to complain about.

Surely you want a return to the good old days when private school kids were elite. Nowadays it's over a third of students.the funding is letting in the riff raff.

 

[Gone Critical]

In terms of influence, you're right that family comes before school, but in terms of teenagers the factor that trumps both is peers and friends.

Ultimately, what you're paying for with Private Schools is your kids peers, friends and future contacts. As middle class Australia walks away from government schools, we're increasingly being left with government schools where poverty with its associated issues and lower expectations of future success is the norm. And those expectations become self fulfilling.

Under the current system, the government is subsidising this. It's subsidising an entrenchment of poverty. And frankly the current system only saves about $5000 a year per child - about $6billion a year if the private school system was shut down completely - which isn't going to occur with a cessation of funding, We wouldn't be talking about a massive budgetary hit to have a more equitable society. If a third of them stay in private schools you break even. More than a third and you help the budget.

You're still going to have big differences depending on the socioeconomic area of the government schools, but less pronounced - particularly as the trend away from govt schools isn't going to abate in the current system.

We've set up a situation where we subsidise private schools and thus have a much higher and growing percentage of students at private schools than comparable countries. In most countries it's just not a middle class option. Thus government schools in other oecd countries are middle class, as they were when we were growing up in Aust - they're quickly becoming filled by poverty in Australia. We're following The States. It's time to invest in trailer parks.

Its a really complicated area and one I have little expertise in but I will still throw is a few alternates to your argument.

1. Following the Yanks?? In structure we are the opposite in that they don't fund private education and therefore have less than 10% of kids in the private system. Its elite and expensive so pretty much what you are proposing Australia do. I suspect if they have a problem, and I bet they do, it will be with uneven funding of public education much like their very uneven funding of health.

2. Britain, with about 5% in private schools, I suspect would be what we would look like if we withdrew govt funding of private schools. At the end of the day I suspect the real problem in Aust govt schools is uneven funding and uneven populating of these schools.

3. Australian private education numbers are skewed by the history of the catholic education system which was developed at least in part for the impoverished who would have struggled to get an education. Just read up on this and plenty I didn't know. 1st hundred years of the system it was funded without any state aid. In 1960's % of kids looking for secondary education went up dramatically and it was the Catholic system, struggling to fund their schools, that were agitating for Govt funding. In 1962 in Goulburn the catholic hierarchy closed all their schools in protest and sent the 2000 students to the Govt schools. This lasted a week before the some agreements were made and by 1963 Menzies passed limited funding for private schools. That's important because still 20% of our kids are in Catholic education and I don't think anyone would believe parents are sending them there for academic excellence. This part of our education is fairly unique to Australia and historically based on the large impoverished Irish Catholic population that was the largest minority group of the imports into Australia. There isn't a similar history in the UK or USA. It accounts for the largest proportion of private education in Aust and explains a lot of why private education numbers in Australia are so high.

4. Good public schools in Victoria do as well as the best private schools do as far as I can tell. I don't know how good NAPLAN is but there was an article in The Age today of the year 9 2022 results and the top 4 were High Schools and 20 of the top 40 were high schools. The kids seem the main determinant of how well a school does. Another interesting NAPLAN study looked a year 3, 5 7 and 9 results in public education, private education and public year 3 and 5 moving to private for year 7 and 9. The group who came out on top all the way through were the kids who moved from public to private but they didn't improve when they changed systems. their 3,5 results were just as good as 7,9. Probably a lot of them got cherry picked by the private system. Despite your thought that public education has fallen away from "our days" at least in pockets it is a long way ahead of what I knew back in the day.

5 The idea of buying your peers friends and future contacts , the "old school tie" , is surely largely dead and buried. While it may have helped some when the upper level private schools were WASP bastions I would guess those days are largely gone. I don't know why anyone would waste $30K plus a year sending kids to those schools but I don't think they will be getting bang for the old connections buck any longer.

6 When you look at the excellent results of all these high schools that are thriving, and it seems they mainly swing widely through the Eastern suburbs, doesn't that suggest the problem lies in different High schools having vastly different experiences and outcomes based largely on the student population. We need a way to get equity into the public system so all kids get a good chance. I dont care really if we closed down public funding of private schools so are left with just the elite private schools. The Catholic and small independent schools close and the students move into the public system. I dont understand how that improves funding, it seems it only makes it worse. The benefit may be a more diverse student group that may drive outcomes more.


Lot of waffle here by me and no doubt a lot of incorrect assumptions but its interesting

 

[Gone Critical]

Why do almost all independent schools close in your very slanted hypothetical? There will be parents that are capable of covering the additional cost and elitist enough to want to sent their precious darlings to non-government schools. If one in three of all currently enrolled independent students remain at an independent school then the tax burden on society in such a model reduces?

I havent tried to be slanted cause I dont have a strong preference either way. I kinda think I am missing something with the funding though cause from what I read the absolute dollars put to a kid in the Public system by the Govt is greater than the absolute dollars given to the private kid. If that is true doesnt that mean the Govt coughs up more each time a private kid moves to the public system. That may be the thought I am mucking up.

The biggest growth in private schools in the last decade is the low fee schools charging <5K per student. Relatively they get a much bigger proportion of their funding from Govt. They and the Catholic schools, except a few high charging ones, could never make up the shortfall in funding if the Govt pulled out so would close. You would be left with the UK/US sysem where on a relative few go to private schools but those schools are much more elite and expensive compared to the Aust system. Thats how I read it anyway.

 

[ZEV]

Private school kids are getting ripped off $4370!

Time to boost funding to them for equality!

 

[Tarkyn_24]

Private school kids are getting ripped off $4370!

Time to boost funding to them for equality!

While we’re at it all workers should receive baseline welfare too!

 

[sr36]

Its a really complicated area and one I have little expertise in but I will still throw is a few alternates to your argument.

1. Following the Yanks?? In structure we are the opposite in that they don't fund private education and therefore have less than 10% of kids in the private system. Its elite and expensive so pretty much what you are proposing Australia do. I suspect if they have a problem, and I bet they do, it will be with uneven funding of public education much like their very uneven funding of health.

2. Britain, with about 5% in private schools, I suspect would be what we would look like if we withdrew govt funding of private schools. At the end of the day I suspect the real problem in Aust govt schools is uneven funding and uneven populating of these schools.

3. Australian private education numbers are skewed by the history of the catholic education system which was developed at least in part for the impoverished who would have struggled to get an education. Just read up on this and plenty I didn't know. 1st hundred years of the system it was funded without any state aid. In 1960's % of kids looking for secondary education went up dramatically and it was the Catholic system, struggling to fund their schools, that were agitating for Govt funding. In 1962 in Goulburn the catholic hierarchy closed all their schools in protest and sent the 2000 students to the Govt schools. This lasted a week before the some agreements were made and by 1963 Menzies passed limited funding for private schools. That's important because still 20% of our kids are in Catholic education and I don't think anyone would believe parents are sending them there for academic excellence. This part of our education is fairly unique to Australia and historically based on the large impoverished Irish Catholic population that was the largest minority group of the imports into Australia. There isn't a similar history in the UK or USA. It accounts for the largest proportion of private education in Aust and explains a lot of why private education numbers in Australia are so high.

4. Good public schools in Victoria do as well as the best private schools do as far as I can tell. I don't know how good NAPLAN is but there was an article in The Age today of the year 9 2022 results and the top 4 were High Schools and 20 of the top 40 were high schools. The kids seem the main determinant of how well a school does. Another interesting NAPLAN study looked a year 3, 5 7 and 9 results in public education, private education and public year 3 and 5 moving to private for year 7 and 9. The group who came out on top all the way through were the kids who moved from public to private but they didn't improve when they changed systems. their 3,5 results were just as good as 7,9. Probably a lot of them got cherry picked by the private system. Despite your thought that public education has fallen away from "our days" at least in pockets it is a long way ahead of what I knew back in the day.

5 The idea of buying your peers friends and future contacts , the "old school tie" , is surely largely dead and buried. While it may have helped some when the upper level private schools were WASP bastions I would guess those days are largely gone. I don't know why anyone would waste $30K plus a year sending kids to those schools but I don't think they will be getting bang for the old connections buck any longer.

6 When you look at the excellent results of all these high schools that are thriving, and it seems they mainly swing widely through the Eastern suburbs, doesn't that suggest the problem lies in different High schools having vastly different experiences and outcomes based largely on the student population. We need a way to get equity into the public system so all kids get a good chance. I dont care really if we closed down public funding of private schools so are left with just the elite private schools. The Catholic and small independent schools close and the students move into the public system. I dont understand how that improves funding, it seems it only makes it worse. The benefit may be a more diverse student group that may drive outcomes more.


Lot of waffle here by me and no doubt a lot of incorrect assumptions but its interesting

My America line was a throwaway comment about a growing general social divide. I wasn't clear that I wasn't referring to education.

The Catholic system has been excellent and really important in Australia's educational development - except for the scandalous faults. But their increasingly high levels of funding is causing an issue

I'm of the view that the amount of funding that a school receives has only a minor impact on results. It's socio-economic factors and the students that enrol. Hence the eastern suburb state schools and areas with high Asian populations significantly outperform most private schools. And I believe the peers in these schools have a far greater impact on a student's education than the school's funding.

The increased levels of funding of private schools is effectively a subsidy to help pull your kid out of the state system and has created a situation where in lower socio economic areas, so many of the stable employed families have paid their $5-10k a year and walked away from the state system. The state schools in those areas are becoming increasingly ghettoee with an increasing proportion of kids of the non-working class with associated issues and as that occurs more and more families leave the state system, because issues amongst kids in those state schools are becoming increasingly disproportionate, which brings down many kids who would have thrived in a different environment. We're set up for inter-generational poverty.

 

[WalterBlaknWhte]

5 The idea of buying your peers friends and future contacts , the "old school tie" , is surely largely dead and buried. While it may have helped some when the upper level private schools were WASP bastions I would guess those days are largely gone. I don't know why anyone would waste $30K plus a year sending kids to those schools but I don't think they will be getting bang for the old connections buck any longer.

Alive and well GC in commerce in Sydney

The kids get taught how to work their networks and the parents are pro-active with introductions, jobs, custom, and even access to venture capital

(and the fees are $45k pa plus a kidney)

 

[Tarkyn_24]

Alive and well GC in commerce in Sydney

The kids get taught how to work their networks and the parents are pro-active with introductions, jobs, custom, and even access to venture capital

(and the fees are $45k pa plus a kidney)

Absolutely more prevalent in Melbourne than it was in Perth too.

 

[sr36]

Alive and well GC in commerce in Sydney

The kids get taught how to work their networks and the parents are pro-active with introductions, jobs, custom, and even access to venture capital

(and the fees are $45k pa plus a kidney)

Plus I was referring more generally than the old school tie networks. I was referring to social groups amongst teens being primarily school based. In lower socioeconomic areas, the real advantage of a private school isnt how funded the school is it's that more students come from productive families and thus there are less poverty related issues in the student body, so kids are less likely to be negatively affected by their peers.

 

[Gone Critical]

Alive and well GC in commerce in Sydney

The kids get taught how to work their networks and the parents are pro-active with introductions, jobs, custom, and even access to venture capital

(and the fees are $45k pa plus a kidney)

I didn't say the bandit classes had changed their ways

 

[Gone Critical]

My America line was a throwaway comment about a growing general social divide. I wasn't clear that I wasn't referring to education.

The Catholic system has been excellent and really important in Australia's educational development - except for the scandalous faults. But their increasingly high levels of funding is causing an issue

I'm of the view that the amount of funding that a school receives has only a minor impact on results. It's socio-economic factors and the students that enrol. Hence the eastern suburb state schools and areas with high Asian populations significantly outperform most private schools. And I believe the peers in these schools have a far greater impact on a student's education than the school's funding.

The increased levels of funding of private schools is effectively a subsidy to help pull your kid out of the state system and has created a situation where in lower socio economic areas, so many of the stable employed families have paid their $5-10k a year and walked away from the state system. The state schools in those areas are becoming increasingly ghettoee with an increasing proportion of kids of the non-working class with associated issues and as that occurs more and more families leave the state system, because issues amongst kids in those state schools are becoming increasingly disproportionate, which brings down many kids who would have thrived in a different environment. We're set up for inter-generational poverty.

That makes sense. I was sure I was missing something. Didnt realise since Gonski the funding to private had increase so much more than to public. Thats shocking and now I understand the angst better, especially Apples. I am surprised there hasnt been more agitation on this but maybe I shouldn't be given my own ignorance.

 

[sr36]

That makes sense. I was sure I was missing something. Didnt realise since Gonski the funding to private had increase so much more than to public. Thats shocking and now I understand the angst better, especially Apples. I am surprised there hasnt been more agitation on this but maybe I shouldn't be given my own ignorance.

It's a really difficult one to politically agitate on.

A) Doing so reinforces negative stereotypes of poverty - making the situation worse.
B) Doing so encourages more parents to withdraw their kids from the state system, also making the situation worse.

I think that's why debate around it tends to focus on the wealth of the most expensive private schools, but that part of it doesn't really matter - it doesn't really matter whether kids in affluent areas get sent to Camberwell High or Caulfield Grammar.

The rationale for shifting to higher proportional funding of private schools is beyond me. All I can suggest is that it might be connected to the growing strength of Christian groups in Australian politics, as it's resulting in a lot more kids schooled at faith aligned institutions, with all the additional prayer, religious instruction and worship of Jesus and Mary that goes along with it.

 

[TradeDraft]

Private School that take tax payers money are NOT Private Schools

 

[WalterBlaknWhte]

Private School that take tax payers money are NOT Private Schools

Agree

And any organisation or citizen who receives more money from tax payers than what they have contributed, should be the property of tax payers

(Kids to have amnesty period to get a job)

 

[TheGreatGrundy]

The problems in government schools are many:
For parents, there's a lack of choice. Strict zoning applies everywhere.
Discipline can be poor.
Poor behaviour is difficult to action - the paperwork involved to expel a kid is enormous and even then, the school must find another school to take on the kid.
Teacher selection: you don't have to score very highly to get into teaching.
Perceptions: the is no career pathway for males, especially in primary schools and males don't want to work in an environment where their every move is viewed with suspicion.

Of course, the problem-parents exist in the private sector too, but they can be moved along, like their kids, if they are not in-tune.

But we have sidetracked the thread. This discussion should be put elsewhere.

As an ex teacher, I am loving your analysis and comments. One section in particular really resonated with me - '

And the elephant in the room; parents.
We're now into our second generation of permissive parenting. Too many kids arrive at school after years of being told they're special. They lack self-discipline, are entitled and feel everybody is there to serve them.

My last secondary welfare posting at a small secondary college boasted results that rivalled the best performed schools in Melbourne, but what struck me most about the students (and parents) was their sense of entitlement, an inherited badge of undeserved honour, and the low status in which teachers, who worked their butt off for these kids, were in fact held. 'You can be whatever you want!', everyone wins at pass the parcel, nobody fails, you just haven't achieved at your full potential. This from the top end of the academic spectrum.

 

[Gone Critical]

As an ex teacher, I am loving your analysis and comments. One section in particular really resonated with me - '

And the elephant in the room; parents.
We're now into our second generation of permissive parenting. Too many kids arrive at school after years of being told they're special. They lack self-discipline, are entitled and feel everybody is there to serve them.

My last secondary welfare posting at a small secondary college boasted results that rivalled the best performed schools in Melbourne, but what struck me most about the students (and parents) was their sense of entitlement, an inherited badge of undeserved honour, and the low status in which teachers, who worked their butt off for these kids, were in fact held. 'You can be whatever you want!', everyone wins at pass the parcel, nobody fails, you just haven't achieved at your full potential. This from the top end of the academic spectrum.

At work we sometimes end up looking after "pregnant couples", and in these cases they are both pregnant. We all say, after they walk out of the rooms with their little bundle of joy at their last visit, "God help that kids teachers".

The vast majority of people are great but the self entitled, demanding, unrealistic couples take up so much extra time, demand extra attention, want longer consultations. Funny thing is they struggle greatly if there is any hold up to their appointment time. At theFlip side they are oblivious to the extra 30 minutes they have had in their consult meaning the others waiting in the rooms are now all 30 minutes behind.

I have this vision of those parents regularly marching into their childs classroom at end of day for their 30 minutes of quizzing the teacher while the teachers face just sags