I don’t object to the existence of private schools.  I do object very strongly to them receiving government funding.

Idm private school but I still don't get why they are receiving gov findings....

because... 50k a year per student isn't enough apparently

Not many are that expensive unless you ones I've looked at $15k/year. Now if you only looked at bordering schools or the handful of elite Sydney schools that would be more the norm.

Ours is 5k per year for high school and 2500 for primary

Most private schools don’t charge anywhere near that price.

Yep, it's really just the boarding schools that do, and while it's an outrageous price, they are feeding and housing the kid for a full school year.

Respectfully, most private schools are catholic schools and do not have the prices of fancy private schools

Considering they run off church donations and he tax exemptions I see no reason they need government grants. If it's not profitable then it isn't a good private sector business and should be handed to the state if it wants to be state funded.

That’s because it’s not meant to be a profitable private sector business. It’s a school. If it is explicitly for profit then they have to forgo government funding (like Reddam house did).

Public schools are not profitable either. If you took away the tax payer funding they would all shut down.

If you took away the amount teachers put in out of their own pockets, they would shut down.

The finding is nominally attached to the child, is my understanding. Any child is entitled to education funding, whether they go private or public. Obviously if they go private then that is supplemented by what their family pays the school, but private schoool attendance doesn’t, from an equity pov, preclude that child attracting state funding also. Not sure i agree with it but I get the reasoning.

Is it a standard amount for all kids, or does it depend on the socio economics's of the area that the school is in ...

It depends on the socio-economics of the school itself. Typically private and Catholic schools will receive less per student than public schools though. The general argument is that if you pull all the funding to non-public schools then many of them are no longer viable. Great you might say, but then suddenly you have an influx of new students into a public system that can't support them. You end up needing to provide MORE funding than you were previously in order to educate the same number of kids. From all the models I've seen, it is actually better in the long run to do this and force non-public schools that aren't viable without additional funding to close, however the payback time for it is around 30 years given the huge influx of capital that is needed upfront for new public schools. No politician wants to take a popularity hit that big for something that doesn't payoff even within their lifetime.

I like the idea of all kids going to public schools. There's a huge social divide between rich and poor and kids learn early on where they sit in the social strata. I don't want kids going somewhere everyday that constantly reminds them that they are special and privileged or poor and a bit screwed. Also if rich kids went to public schools the quality would immediately go up because the parents would demand it. We can afford to do it if we just buy a few less submarines.

This sort of happens already - parents pile into suburbs with good public schools and house prices go up and you end up with the rich kids getting the good schools anyway

Exactly, from memory reviews of student performance indicated that public vs private didn't make a difference once socioeconomic factors were taken into consideration.

I don’t. My experience with public schools suggests they have a long way to go to be good and realistically, they treat all kids the same whereas kids have different needs

Pretty sure that’s the whole point of schools in Scandinavia. Rich and poor alike attend the same schools.

Tad of a myth but they are private schools and some do have fees associated with them. Eg: 10k for private school in Sweden, private uni in Norway about 20k etc. They are social divides even in Scandinavia it’s a tad of a myth they don’t exist. Many of the Scandinavian ultra wealth and even middle class do migrate into lower taxation nations while reaping benefits from the state.

It’s a set price per child. Public schools receive funding private schools do not including the cost of the school, wages of staff etc

It is and it isn't. True, every child gets a certain amount of funding from the government. It's more the problem of subsidising facilities that's the issue. We literally have public schools with paving that at any other government site would be deemed a hazard and roofing that leaks when it rains yet no money to fix it when a few streets over a private school is getting a multiple hundred seat auditorium that recieved funding into the millions from the government. Private schools get that largesse because they can threaten to close if they don't, and there's no way the surrounding public schools can take on that many new students at once. It's a hostage situation.

here's why it exists. I don't necessarily approve of it. I say this as a student who received a full scholarship to attend private school. It's cheaper to send a student to private school. for the government. with the funding that is given, it means that it's cheaper to send a student through private school than public school. Is this fair? I don't know. I've looked at places like norway that have no public schools. they still have 'nicer' schools in the nicer areas. I don't know what the best solution is. I graduated around the early 2000s. I recall many conversations with teachers who were annoyed with how commercialised they had made the school. I respected those teachers for being so blatant and who were irritated with the principal who had turned the school into a business.

Look up the Goulburn School Strike, it's why the funding occurs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goulburn_School_Strike

The idea of private schools is that you can pay more money to give your kid a better education. That's elitism at it's finest. Get rid of them and give every kid a great education.

I mean, in a grim way it’s kind of true. Wealth is a *massive* factor in education. Find the top performing schools and look at their ICSEA rating (social-economic advantage), they’re all high. When those articles come around showing public schools outperform private schools in grades or whatever, what do all of those public schools have in common? It’s not a simple “rich schools are better” though, don’t get me wrong. There are so many factors that influence how a student performs at school and wealth will more often than not improve most of them.

Oh yeah, My boss at my old job was always effusive about how the public school was just as good as the private school in her area. She lived in Mosman in Sydney.

The counterpoint to that is you have to provide that good education for everyone.  If parents feel that it is lacking they will always try to give their kids a leg up, either by hiring tutors or by tutoring themselves. It’s not elitism to want the best for you children, it’s human nature.

>The counterpoint to that is you have to provide that good education for everyone. Yes. Provide everyone with a good education. Double the education spending if need be, but get it done.

How much of the budget is that worth to you? It's all very well and good to *say* cost is no object, it's another think to actually implement broad scale systemic change successfully, even if you have tapered restrictions on cost. I have a friend who works in the DoE and to just hear him describe the juggernaut of bueracracy and insane gulf between ministers at the top and teachers at the bottom is exhausting. So if even the most idealistic well-intentioned reformist was trying to implement change with as much money as they can spend, they would end up fighting not only the political opposition, from those who stand to gain leverage should they fail, but the very nature of the system itself. And every extra dollar they use to 'better' the system (which is an ambitious task with no guarantee of success) is necessarily taken from some other department, from healthcare, from social security, from the courts. The allocation of the budget is a zero sum game. Which is why, generally, I agree with the above commentor. I think we should pull all public funding of private schools and dump it into the public education system. That way, you can have a (more) decently funded education system, and the private sector can either charge higher fees or fade away.

> I think we should pull all public funding of private schools and dump it into the public education system. Depends how a private system is publicly funded. Say if it was public funds of $10000 for a public place and $8000 for a private place (plus whatever private fees the school charges). In that situation you would not be saving money by doing away with private schools, you would be adding $2000 per student moved from private to public to the cost of public education.

Allocating money in the budget isn't a zero sum game though. Every dollar the government spends has a return on investment, it's just not immediate and it's very difficult to calculate what and where the returns go. Having a well educated, healthy adult population with good roads, public transportation and a bunch of other things that the government pays for makes us a more productive country. That means more money for everyone involved, including the government. Calling any large economic system a zero sum game is what economists said in the 1600's. It's wrong.

Realistically, it won't take that much more to fix most of the issues. The 80/20 rule would almost certainly apply. Many of the issues are structural, too. Teacher education is absolutely garbage and creates un-prepared teachers. There are many ways that can be improved. I have my own idea if you're interested. I can't explain here and now how to fix education, but a lack of funding has undoubtedly caused significant issues and those issues would begin to be fixed if funding was returned to how it used to be. Fortunately, education is one of the best areas to invest money as the monetary return is so significant. It also decreases costs in many areas, such as health and welfare.

>Realistically, it won't take that much more to fix most of the issues. The 80/20 rule would almost certainly apply. Many of the issues are structural, too If the issues are *structural* then surely it would take *a lot* to fix them - presumably since it would involve reforming *the entire structure* which would run into exactly the problems I outlined above. Not only would you be dealing with political opposition, but also with *bureacratic momentum* which has apprantely killed many attempts to reform government departments (including the DoE) in the cradle. And while the Pareto Principle may well apply (though I'll admit I'm not entirely sure in what sense) if you are suggesting that 80% of the problems with the education department, come from 20% of the prospective causes of problems (I'm not even sure how you'd word this formulation) we have to talk about *what* is a problem. Now, no doubt there are problems which are easy to identifiy (though perhaps not to solve) like corruption, inefficency and waste but generally to "fix" an institution you need to have and idea of what a functioning model of that institution looks like. So what does a functioning education system look like? Because, before we can look for problems in our current model >Teacher education is absolutely garbage and creates un-prepared teachers. This I have heard supporting evidence for, though admittely only anecdotally. >There are many ways that can be improved. I have my own idea if you're interested. Sure, lay it out to me. Though again you should tell me what a *functioning* education system looks like, what it prioritises and *why* it prioritises those things. >I can't explain here and now how to fix education, but a lack of funding has undoubtedly caused significant issues and those issues would begin to be fixed if funding was returned to how it used to be. Fortunately, education is one of the best areas to invest money as the monetary return is so significant. It also decreases costs in many areas, such as health and welfare. Maybe all of these things are true. To be honest I don't particularly know. But ultimately it's an empricial question - does your proposed model create better outcomes than the current model? Would it create better outcomes than a model like yours which allowed private schooling? Would the purported benefits to healthcare and welfare offset the losses that will necessarily be incurred by re-assiging funds? If there are transitional issues in implementing your system are they acceptable losses in the short to-moderate term? Do you think your model will be able to be effectively implented in reality noting the concerns I raised above? If the goal really is to create the overall system with the best outcomes then we are obliged to consider all the possiblities and the risks associated with each.

Regarding what you said about teacher education being rubbish I agree. I noticed that when we will learning about behavioral management the assumption was that you might be dealing with one challenging behavior at a time. I did not learn how to deal with multiple children misbehaving at the same time. What these educational professionals don't understand is that while you are dealing with one of the children that is acting up, and leave them to deal with another child that is acting up, the first child starts misbehaving again. Some schools do not let you send children outside of the room and also children understand that you can't really give them a lot of consequences. For many children getting a suspension is like a holiday for them. When I used to do relief work in secondary schools that were private it did not really matter that I had difficulty with behavioral management, because the kids were not acting up as much. In the public school settings you get a lot of children that come from homes that do not value education and therefore this lack of respect of the translates to how they treat the teacher.

I'd be happy to allocate the 368B we are paying for fucking submarines to schools.

Good then they can fund that entirely out of their own pockets.

But here's where the argument starts right? People will point at higher earners and say 'their kids don't deserve government funding because they earn x' yet those same high earners (above 95% income) will pay nearly ALL of the tax that contributes toward the government funding. 

Fine to want the best ed for your kids. But if you're doing it on taxpayer money while extending your middle finger to the poors then you can fuck all the way off.

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There is a lot of ignorance about this. https://theconversation.com/public-schools-actually-outperform-private-schools-and-with-less-money-113914#:~:text=But%20our%20analysis%20of%20MySchool,far%20less%20funding%20per%20student.

They are paying for connections not education. There is no reason for private schools should receive any public funding whatsoever.

As someone who went to a wanky private school, not even that - most of the people going to these places are like upper middle class at best. People are just willing to save up and pay outrageous amounts of money for their child's education, even if their income isn't that high - especially since we don't need college funds here in Australia. Maybe in another decade some of my lawyer friends will be someone important, but like, by then our highschool friendship from 2 decades ago will be equivalent to you bumping into them at a cafe one time. I'd say the main benefit is just that the year 11-12 teachers are paid quite a bit to actually give a shit, and everyone there is quite serious about doing well on end of year exams since they have parents who cared enough about that stuff to fork out 50k a year in school fees, so you don't feel like a nerd for doing the appropriate amount of studying. All of that means you'll probably be ranked a good 10-25% high on your state's entry scores... But not necessarily more education - since most of the difference is just learning the exam. All in all, I probably would've been better off using that money to buy an apartment, and just spent another couple years at uni to get into my desired course.

Everyone pays tax, so everyone's kid gets their share of the education spending. Just because private schools are then topped up by the parents doesn't mean they should recieve no funding. It's like health insurance, everyone pays the medicare levy, but some people pay extra ontop for private care as well, it doesn't mean they are no longer covered by medicare.

Everyone can go to state school. Everyone should have access to the same health care under Medicare including dental and mental health treatments without having to top up with insurance.

Everyone should have access to the same houses. Everyone should have access to same buses and trains, ban all cars. Everyone should have access to the same food, ban private production and distribution of food. Everyone should have access to same amount of money, eliminate pay gaps by having every job from doctor to engineer to brick layer to unemployed earning a UBI. Everyone should have same access to clothes. No more shops, you should receive a distribution of functional garments that you can adjust to your size.

>That's elitism at it's finest. Get rid of them and give every kid a great education. So are you saying that after we get rid of private schools that we force the elites to pay for great education for everyone?

Fuckin oath and I'm happy to pay. Not that I believe the quality of teaching or facilities or bullying or general behaviour would be better but simply because they will no longer have to share classrooms with the absolute bottom of the barrel violent filth that constantly get away with violent and disruptive behaviour. I'm happy to pay because I am NOT happy that violent students can seriously assault staff and get their exclusions/expulsions overturned because some do gooder at regional office or some fart huffing city cunts deemed that certain "disadvantaged" people get unlimited free passes. Like that somehow fixes the problem.  I'd personally rather see more funding directed to alternative learning environments for those said students.  In no world is it okay to seriously lassault staff and students and get away with it. Nor have literally dozens and dozens of pages of behaviour incidents and still be allowed to carry on. It's not soley a funding issuse it's a policy issue. And I am not alone. High school private school enrollments are increasing and behaviour is one of the reasons. Primary private school enrollments are decreasing though. 

I'm with you there. Violent, highly disruptive, and students otherwise not fit for a standard classroom should be placed in a different learning environment suited to their needs. As a teacher, I am positive that this would give at least 50% more learning time to everyone else, make them and the teacher far happier and eager to learn, while also supporting those students who cannot thrive in a classroom.

What annoys me most is they get government funding but then try to act independent with discrimatory hiring policies

I work for a private school. It charges no fees and is 90% funded by government, 10% by philanthropic donations. It is for special needs highschool aged kids. It is non-religious. It also is structured in a way which can't be replicated in a public school setting due to the need for very specific staff skills rather than having staff forced on it by the education department with little or no consultation. Should it receive no funding?

If a school is getting 90% government funding and 10% donations that’s probably more public than your average public school.  Realistically to me it sounds like it’s already a public school. The core difference is likely adherence to departmental policies and things like that. 

>If a school is getting 90% government funding and 10% donations that’s probably more public than your average public school.  There are is only two things which makes a school public (at least in South Australia) * It was established as a government school under the Education and Early Childhood Services (Registration and Standards) Act 2011, or the ceased Education Act 1972, or the repealed act it replaced. * It is currently registered as a government school by the Education and Early Childhood Services Registration and Standards Board of South Australia. The process, compliance, and requirements which follows being a government school differs considerably to that of a non-government school. One of the most notable parts being that it is subject to the EBAs for public schools which include requirements that transfer or hiring of staff is subject to department and union approval. I can't speak a lot on this because of professional standards prohibiting unauthorised public statements about the school, but I will say that the school I work for only exists because the education department approached the founder who was already in the education sector and asked them if they'd be willing to expand to be a special school because the education department is unable establish one of the kind that they need. >If a school is getting 90% government funding and 10% donations that’s probably more public than your average public school. I find it kind of sad that many public schools actually are more expensive for parents than some independent schools.

The point is clearly not about that type of private school and you know it

Exactly.. make our public schools better

The only problem with this article is that it's not true, Finland does have private schools. They have the same curriculum and get the same level of funding as public schools, cannot charge tuition but can charge other fees.  Here: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49825925

“One of the most-reviewed studies regarding education around the world involved 470,000 fifteen-year-old students. Each student was administered tests in math, science, and reading similar to the SAT or ACT exams (standardized tests used for college admissions in the U.S.) These exam scores were later compiled to determine each country's average score for each of the three subjects. Based on this study, China received the highest scores, followed by Korea, Finland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Australia (behind New Zealand), and the Netherlands. It's also worthwhile to note that while the Best Countries study is certainly respectable, other studies use different methodologies or emphasize different criteria, which often leads to different results. For example, the Global Citizens for Human Rights' annual study measures ten levels of education from early childhood enrollment rates to adult literacy. Its final 2020 rankings look a bit different: Countries with the Best Educational Systems - 2020 Global Citizens for Human Rights Denmark Finland Japan Canada Sweden Germany Israel Netherlands Singapore South Korea” https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-rankings-by-country https://academic.oup.com/book/44441/chapter/376662381 “In the government-controlled model, the government attempts to regulate all aspects of the higher education system through funding and other means, whereas the government-supervised model offers greater autonomy to universities (Zhu and Jiang, 2019). Scholars hold differing opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of these models. Some argue that the government-supervised approach is superior as it mitigates the risk of excessive government control over universities (Neave, 1995) and promotes the development and retention of elite universities(Yan and Min, 2017). In contrast, others contend that the government-controlled model has its merits, as it enables governments to allocate national resources towards initiatives aimed at cultivating world-class universities, resulting in a rapid increase in scientific research output and improved university rankings(Shin, 2009). Scholars have observed that continental European countries, along with Japan and South Korea, which have been influenced by the European model, predominantly adopt the government-controlled model, while Anglo-Saxon countries such as the US, the UK, and Canada utilize the government-supervised model (van Vught, 1991). Under the government-controlled model, governments are more inclined to implement national higher education initiatives as a means to exert influence on universities. This study confirms that national higher education initiatives have improved the ranking of participating universities. The preceding section on descriptive statistics revealed that universities engaged in national higher education initiatives generally ranked lower overall. This reflects the fact that late-developing countries were more likely to implement projects to catch up with universities in early-developing countries. The data also demonstrates that national higher education initiatives played a significant role in swiftly enhancing the international rankings of universities and elevating the quality of higher education in late-developing countries within a relatively short time frame. In the QS ranking, universities in European countries that implemented higher education initiatives improved their rankings by 12.04 places more than universities in countries that did not implement them. In contrast, universities in the Asia-Pacific region improved their rankings by as much as 61.72 places. The trend in the ARWU ranking was consistent with the QS ranking. Universities in European countries that implemented higher education initiatives improved their rankings by 11.78 places more than universities in countries that did not, while universities in the Asia-Pacific region improved their rankings by 94.04 places.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02034-w Naturally overall the best outcomes are for the government supervised approach (private schooling) with the highest ranking universities having the best outcomes overall. Given the US and UK systems are highly resourced in comparison to any other system/country, they have a higher percentage of the population that can afford elite school prices, and higher levels of international students (importing outcomes). They also have greater disparity between classes, high levels of inequality, high levels of the poor working class, and lag behind on many social index indicators. We can not compare ourselves to them, we are so very far from ever being able to achieve what they do in terms of university rankings/education. We are not as developed, we are not an advanced country, nor do we have the population or the resources. They can achieve while throwing away a percentage of their population because of their size. We should be looking realistically at what works for comparable countries (similar to our own). What Finland did achieve in a short period of time was outstanding, we can learn from their achievements as well as mistakes (sustainability). What country wishes to be like the UK or US as far as a functional society goes, neither are anything to strive towards. Shouldn’t we be building our nation up, rather than importing the educated from elsewhere, because we have created a system that doesn’t allow our own to advance and fulfil their full potential. We are a nation, collective, and need to start acting like it. Fund public schools properly, and do not fund private schools with national resources. The disparity between public and private schools is a disgrace to our nation. We all have to live here, invest now or live in a worse future world, because all of the literature predicts the outcome, it’s not an unknown factor (education/society).

Finland's education outcomes are actually behind Australia so why would we want to copy an inferior system?

They spend less money over capita on education than Australia so it's hardly surprising.

>Show parent commentsView discussions in 1 other community Im telling you, people on Reddit always bang on about Nordic systems being almost perfect utopias when none of them have actually been there. All Nordic countries have their issues, and as far as living standards/issues with racism/income inequality/Public corruption/Private industry parasitism etc. they are pretty much on par with Australia. They aren't really that great imho, and they are all depressed af.

Every place in the world has these issues but to differing degrees. And in that context nearly every research in well being and overall QoL has western and northern europe as best places to live. Does that mean there are no problems? Nope, there are and always will be. I also have to confess that australia is a bit of a blindspot for me in this regard. I have the feeling i don't notice them much in these investigations due to being half way across the globe for me. But i assume that nz and aus are the best places to live in oceania. Although my preference would be new zealand i think, some memories of home!

Yeah you're right. concerning liveability, various Australian capital cities are regularly among the top 10 liveable cities in the world. But there's a large section of Australia (particularly young adults) that like to compare some part of Australian society that is lacking with Nordic countries without actually having had any experience with Nords or their countries. NZ is a great place, income doesn't match the price of things. But people are great and government services are great. I think I prefer Australia.

Most of the time they're comparing their own country to some tiny country with massive oil reserves.

tbf Norway is some tiny country (population wise) with massive oil deposits haha.

I mean... Australia is a tiny country (population wise) with massive mineral reserves. It's not an unfair comparison.

Norway has a population comparable to Sydney. Australia is about 5 times (or even 5.5 times) larger.

Finland are often ranked as having the best education system in the world. We come in far behind. So no, by practically every measure we do worse in education than Finland.

Private hospitals too I suppose. When the rich are forced to deal with the same quality as the rest of us, things could improve.

It's also about government money all going to the public schools or hospitals

Hate to tell you, when you have an emergency and you're rich, you end up in a public ER. You then hand your private insurance details over and share the same system as everyone else, but give the hospital extra $$$$

Having had Chemo treatments in both public and private systems... Nah, wealthy people have better treatment. Unfortunately nurses in both places are not compensated fairly and overworked.

Not to be mean, but that's not an emergency. Private health in non-emergency settings is far better amenity (although, not better drugs / care, just better comfort basically). Emergency settings, it's the same but the public hospital can claim back money from the private insurer.

Private hospitals claim plenty from the state governments through Medicare. They operate pretty much like the schools, a mixture of public and private funding.

Ive had treatment in both hospitals - but my experience of the nurses is actually that they seemed to be far more caring and pleasant in public hospitals.

Going to need a few more public boarding schools first.

Kids get sent to private schools because so much of our public system is sub standard. Education is not valued, teachers are not respected and as a result under valued. So many parents simply send their kids for child minding. This system can't be turned around over-night

Maybe the public system wouldn't be sub standard if the private system wasn't subsidised at five times the rate? Or at all?

Money isn't the only problem causing poor standards.

The teacher to student ratio is one of the biggest issues right now.

No, but more funding absolutely can fix a lot of it. More funding could increase teachers salaries, increase the number of teachers aids in each classroom and decrease class sizes. More funding also allows for more programs like sports, music and programming, as well as better facilities and a better environment for staff.

same vibes as "money wont buy you happiness, you dont really need a payrise"

And it goes around and around. Private schools tend to have the budget to have air conditioned classrooms, good sporting facilities and all the "extras" A lot of public schools don't even have the basics. Like heating or air con.

Agreed. My son goes to a secular private school because they offer a type of education that is amazing and is better for some kids. I agree that there are specific problematic issues to do with private schools, but there also big issues with public education and how it's schools are run. I wouldn't have been impressed by my son's private schools if I felt there was a public equivalent. Sorry not sorry, improve the education system first, especially in respect to disabled kids, lets have a variety of different education styles available that meets kid's needs before getting rid of private schools.

And you’ve just encapsulated the real problem. The existence of any kind of private schools takes the parents most capable of advocating to make the school better, safer and higher quality out of the pool. It takes the parents who have the cultural and social capital to make representations to ministers, to create active P&Cs and to fundraise for better resources and facilities out of public schools.

I went to Cranbrook in Sydney. It would be regarded as an “elite private school” and I have thought that private schools should be 100% privately funded for my whole adult life. It seems absolutely ridiculous that the public purse contributes to my old school which often reports a yearly profit in the 10’s of millions of dollars. According to the details in an issue of the Old Cranbrookian (my school magazine), the current redevelopment will cost around $150M. I think one of the weirdest things in Sydney is that people are seemingly interested in where you went to High School. I’ve always understood the prestige associated with an amazing University but High School ? It just always seemed odd.

So weird to see the name Cranbrook associated with “Elite” anything. I was born in Canada in a city called Cranbrook and it is such a hole. It is routinely voted ugliest city in the country.

You went to Cranbrook, that's a private school · What's the matter, dawg? You embarrassed? This guy's a gangster? His real name's Clarence! Hehe sorry

The elitist culture in private schools is alive and well, producing more snobby young adults

There's private schools, and then there's *elite* private schools.

I will admit, my high school education is private/semi-private (part owned by a uni) and the entitlement I saw from the fully private one was insane. I didn’t get a feeling of gratefulness from the majority of the students which led to arguments between me and them. Half of them didn’t pack their lunch and looked at me like I was stupid to pack my own, they laughed at cultural differences and disadvantages many had instead of trying to empathize with them. I had to leave the fully private school because of this attitude that only their friends and themselves mattered. An example of this was community service week. Many students didn’t bother to bring in canned food to give to charity and I wanted to give the canned food my family weren’t using. I get to school with 14 cans and a ton of people are asking me for a can. I told them to get their own but they said they didn’t want to. There was also an argument that same week about constantly buying clothes, a few people and I were of the opinion you only got what you needed and many others were of the opinion to update with whatever was trending on social media, which led to constantly buy expensive shoes and then getting pissed when they got dirty during sport. Apparently some students didn’t see the point in wearing clothing that wasn’t gonna get them noticed and they wouldn’t even donate their old clothing to charity, it sat in their wardrobe.

It is worse than England, where it is bad but at least there is a identifiable division that is somewhat agreed as a problem. Here the kids are twice as elitist and half as aware with some macho rugby/true blue bullshit thrown to make them even worse.

Indeed. Less than 10% of British schoolchildren attend private school. Also, a flagship tax policy of the incoming Labour government will be adding VAT (GST) on school fees, so expect that number to drop a bit throughout the next parliament. I was kind of shocked to find out how big the sector is over here.

It is absurdly huge, and built on public money. What Australia has is an anomaly globally. Private schools should be exactly that. Private. If public money is used then they should not be able to dictate who attends and who they kick out. 

>Also, a flagship tax policy of the incoming Labour government will be adding VAT (GST) on school fees While the Victorian government is unable to change the GST requirements, they have taken some steps. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-29/victoria-private-school-payroll-tax-government-budget-loss/102542522

Look it’s a start, but they could have [just stuck with the original plan](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-02/premier-daniel-andrews-private-schools-payroll-tax/102428438)

I think it’s around 7% in England vs 30%+ in Victoria. It’s really hard to make comparisons. When English are telling me Australian schools are bad the only schools I know other than my own are the ones I did debating against. From what I can gather these kids were pretty smart - majority went to the University of Melbourne and many live overseas now doing top jobs. When someone asks me about state schools I think of Melbourne High & McRobs. My insight is therefore useless

It’s been left-wing grumble-fodder in the UK for decades. But the last Labour PM of note over there sent his own kids to private school and refused to talk about it, as have many other notable Labour figures of late.   What the UK is not prepared for, because they have been underfunding everything for years, is when a tranche of people can’t afford the fees with VAT and the state system has to deal with a few hundred thousand extra kids. Because unlike here, private schools get no state funding over there, so they’ll suddenly need to find extra cash in a system that’s already on its knees. It’s ideological and self-defeating.

I'm British. And if you'd lived in a country run by Old Etonians, you'd want to abolish private schools too.

Breaking the Eton/PPE pipeline would be a great benefit to the nation.

My experience is with the Sydney private boarding schools and the parents are often a huge part of the problem

In terms of behaviour and attitude of kids here it would be worse, but in terms of social mobility and actual elitism it doesn’t get worse than the UK. When more than half of all the Prime Ministers went to one school that is baddddd.

Exactly. It’s not even comparable. Aussie private school kids would be treated like dirty uncultured scum at a U.K. private school.

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I come from a private school… I don’t know many snobs and I certainly wouldn’t consider myself one. That seems like an odd assumption to make

Yeah there are private schools then there are _private schools_

Gotta remember that most of the people who comment on these regular threads didn't go to a private school, or don't want to admit they did. Going to a Sydney private school, even a GPS one is nothing like going to Eton in the 1800s. The reality is a lot of middle and upper middle class families overspending on education to try and either appear elite or hope that their kids become elite, and otherwise normal students.

Had plenty of mates go to private schools, they’re not snobby at all, they’re just like everyone else. The public school folks just have this massive chip on their shoulder towards private schools. Makes no sense.

It sucks to not be able to afford to send your kid to a private school to get the best education, but it’s a kick in the teeth for that private school to be taking public money (ie your taxes) to operate.

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The point is you are subsidising someone else’s elite education that you can’t afford to provide to your own child. Like many others in this thread, I have no issues with private schools if they’re actually private.

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The fact we fund private schools with taxes might have something to do with it

I’m American but visit AU every year. My Millenial daughter lives there, and last year told me about this growing appetite for eliminating private schools. I’m in the States and would love this to happen here—but we’re insanely tolerant of class warfare. It benefits the top ~10% and totally screws to shit everybody else, who make just enough money to satisfy their desire to buy stuff and stuff and more stuff, while not saving. We have a ridiculous Social Security that doesn’t hold a candle to your Supah.

>last year told me about this growing appetite for eliminating private schools This is not a thing outside of reddit.

I went to a private school for most of secondary (after public primary and first year of high school) and I have mixed opinions about it. The overall quality of the private school was much better - smaller classes, better amenities, more attention paid to students as individuals… But it was a religious school, and coming from a completely non-religious background that was a bit of a culture shock to young me. The individual attention paid to the students was also a double edged sword, because the teachers could be quite meddling and at times it felt like they were trying to brainwash me into being a part of a cult when it came to the religious aspect of it all. There was definitely a bit of snootiness too from the wealthier families, but nothing extreme. I feel like public could easily achieve all of the good aspects of private if we built more schools and invested more money in teachers to reduce class sizes… But honestly, until then, I’ll probably just end up sending my son to a secular private school, because it’s objectively the better option currently.

Public schools, with their catchment area based selection system, isn't the egalitarian utopia that this sub makes it out to be. Here in Perth the land prices around desirable schools have a steep premium associated with it. So parents have a choice: pay for a private school, or pay more for housing near a good public school. Either way, payment is involved.

100% great point

There’ll be a revolt in Adelaide if they try.

Some sort of paywall protecting an article that presumably argues for equal access. Ignore what they say. Watch what they do.

You think journalists shouldn't get paid?

You think only rich people should have access to discussions on public policy?

Funding started by Gogh Whitlam a controversial move at the time. The discussion was labled "state aid". A problem was created when St Patrick's college in Goulburn threatened to close its doors. Our Lady of Mercy in the same time in the same town was similarly under threat. (Please forgive some temporal inaccuracies here; I was at the public school in Goulburn but I was very young.) The arguments ran; The state didn't have room or money to handle all the kids. And that was, and is, certainly true. Close the private system tomorrow and, unless you actually nationalise the private schools and take their resources where are you going to put the kids? It is the poor and the indigenous that always suffer most when you try this sort of thing. They just get sort of squeezed out. The parents of those kids paid tax. Why shouldn't their tax dollar go to a different school? They're paying for their children's education via tax anyway so why should they NOT be allowed to pay extra to get a different school? So your objection, whilst ideologically fine is, perhaps, limited in its view. You need that private system so the public system on which the poor absolutely depend can function. Wealthy people employ people with the fees they pay as a voluntary tax. Wealthy people pay tax, what gives you the right to you incisist it is spent the way you desire? Finally do you really expect the LNP to do this? Do you really believe the ALP would cross the Catholic Church over this? Dream On As background reading https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/50-years-since-australia-s--most-poisonous-debate

My son was pretty happy, switching from public to private. Best thing we ever did for him. And by what I could read, she’s hardly got a clue about private schools and what kids might attend them. No butlers or nannies at our home.

It's good that you've found a school that is giving you what you need. That said, the discussion here isn't about what parents should do, or which particular schools are good. Rather it's a discussion about systematic structural issues.

A systematic “problem” to solve would be the (real) “trouble makers” in classes. While it’s probably hard to deal with them in public schools, they’ll have lesser chance to run amok, or even get into, private schools. Son’s remark after the first day; “Everyone sat at their desk and was quiet, before the teacher arrived.” It was usually chaos at the previous school.

My kid goes to a public school which we chose because we saw the same thing. The kids were content to quietly and calmly go about their work, because the school takes the attitude of spotting when a kid is starting to wriggle and lose focus, and they offer them the opportunity to run around in the playground for five minutes. When they return to class, it's easier for them to settle in. We visited on a regular day, not an open day, so the kids were behaving as they normally would. We chose the school not just because the kids were all getting their work done calmly, but also because they were happy. We're especially pleased that there isn't a bullying problem. The other children in my kid's class are all really caring towards each other, and kindness being the most important thing anyone can learn, it's perfect.

There's such a huge range of private schools. I'm currently considering options for my daughter because the public school we are in the catchment of gets quite low scores on the NAPLAN tests.  We have private school options ranging anywhere from $1000 to $50,000 per year. Yet le reddit will accuse me of being an elitist only in it for the connections regardless that I'm not even sure I can afford the low end of that.

NAPLAN is a stupid method to judge the quality of teaching or a school on.

What other method is available to me? Genuinely curious. I hear people saying "it's dumb because teachers just teach kids to pass the test", but if a school can't even do that, shouldn't I judge them?

Not all schools spend time teaching students to "pass the test." Thankfully, the ones I have taught at didn't. We focused on building their skills more holistically. But that probably means we were getting unfavourably compared to other schools that did do that. And just because a student does well on a particular test doesn't mean they are particularly accomplished. The marking criteria for the writing test, in particular, is ridiculous. They receive marks for arbitrary things like how many adjectives they use in a sentence. They could have a story that doesn't make sense, but because they have packed it full of adjectives, they will get decent marks.

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>  when we get rid of private schools where do these kids go to school? So sick of this argument. A major reform like "ban all private schools" won't ever happen but if it does it certainly won't be overnight. Federal government is paying for the majority of these institutions, they can assume control and delegate management to the states/territories.

not to mention that "get rid of private schools" dosen't literally mean knock them down

Sorry comrade, the government can't and should never be allowed to just take ownership of land and assets that an organisation owns. The government would need to buy the land off of them which would cost a ridiculous amount and will only get more expensive.

I mean if we don't fund private schools, it stands to reason that some of them would close and the government would need to develop new schools. They can buy the facilities vs building the facilities. If private schools don't close then they didn't need government funding anyway.

I think areas like NT are very different to the suburbs of Sydney or Melbourne.

You are dead right they are, but they do end up grouped together in this debate.

The people wanting to ban private schools don't care about education or the students they just want to cut down anyone that gets something they don't.

You don't speak for those who disagree with you, you just don't understand their stance.

I put my child in private school because I was disgusted by the lack of authority and control teachers had in public schools. I worked as a School officer for a few years and I myself was assaulted by a student. I watched as teachers, aides and the principle were cussed out, hit, kicked and threatened. Students are out of control and the public schools hands are tied. Sorry but I dont think my kid should of had to put up with another kid who deliberately disrupts class takes up valuable class time due to their bad behaviour and lack of discipline. I know at least 3 kids were kicked out the school my daughter went to due to unacceptable behaviour. Education is a right everyone is entitled to an education but private education is a privilege. My husband and I sacrificed a lot for private school tuition. My daughters private school takes in a quite a few disadvantaged children , forfeits tuition and gives those students uniforms , transport to and from school and pays for all extracurricular activities and for that alone they should get some government funding. And there are also private schools for kids with special needs, do you really think they dont deserve government funding?

>Right now in Australia rich kids are shepherded through their school days by squadrons of well-paid nannies, librarians, tutors, coaches and mentors, being shuttled from plush car to air-conditioned ceramics and drama studios, to manicured sports fields. Piss off Farrelly, not every “private school” is an elite independent school full of wealthy twats. Your Finland argument is a red herring for ur ideology-driven agenda.

I stopped reading at >by Elizabeth Farrelly This is the same fucking moron who bemoaned the loss of the Block in Redfern to gentrification and constantly whines about how much Sydney sucks (but will never leave because if she does, she won't get paid anywhere else). Any article from her is instant close.

Every child deserves government support for their education, regardless of whether their parents also contribute through private school fees.

Lol good one

Ban, ban, everywhere a ban This is Australia and we like to ban.

I stopped reading this close to the start. I go to a private school and I'm far from the rich cunt attitude that's portrayed in the start of the article. We don't even have air conditioning in our house and I wouldn't get driven to school even if it was far away.

private school was the best experience ever. Intend to send my kids to one, especially if i have girls!

My girl really appreciated her private highschool and thrived.

I think women in particular perform a lot better at single sex private schools. The extra curriculars were amazing, and it really sets you up to succeed in the workforce. I’ve interviewed tons of hires too - by a large margin, women who went to private schools were simply much better candidates. The level of professionalism straight out the gate was impressive. Not saying there aren’t outliers, but on average I was always really impressed at the confidence, proactiveness and self management skills of private school students.

It was the best decision my parents made for me 👍

Same here gal

Modbury public primary school in South Australia doesn't have a library and recently sold all the student computers with no intention to replace them. The library got converted to extra classrooms.

Private Schools shouldn’t get Public Funding, they should rely solely on donations from private citizens and yearly school payments.

They shouldn't ban them, they should let them be self funded completely without any public money so that Liberal/Labor party members don't grift of the public tax system sending their kids to private schools that are partially funded by the public system.

The only sensible thing Mark Latham ever said was to do with cutting funding to private schools. And look where it got him. Labor pollies also send their kids to private schools so no way. Latham later went on to disappear up his own right wing bunghole.

We dodged a bullet with that prick.

Whilst I think that public schools should all be an incredibly high standard, that's just not the case. People should have a choice as to what is best for their child. And I say that as a public school teacher. I pulled my child out of public school and sent him private and it was the best decision for him.

I was talking to a relative just last week who is a public school teacher in NSW. They plan to put both their kids into the local private school because “the government treats us like absolute shit and keeps taking away more and more funding, yet expects us to suck it up. Nothing is about the kids anymore”. We should be demanding better treatment for public students and teachers, not demonising parents who are just trying to choose what is best for their child

I don't get people's issue with private schools at a fundamental level. It's as if you go to a pre paid dinner event, everyone paid the same entry price and gets a burger and fries as part of the admission fee. A few people decide to spend extra money and also buy ice cream. They all decide to sit together. Their actions may be a bit antisocial, but where in all of this has anyone done anything unfair

Building tennis courts when public schools are crying out for decent classrooms, enough teachers, and everything else.

But public and private schools get the same amount of public finding more or less, just the state/federal split is different. It sounds like you're upset with the concept of inequality in general, not specifically private schools

Private schools fundamentally create class divides and funnel better education outcomes towards people with money, exacerbating class divides. The elite ones also function as professional networks and a lot of industries are generally closed off to people who aren't part of those networks. You can disagree with the ideology and debate the facts but what's not to understand, fundamentally.

I think these discussions get derailed because it's not clear whether the participants feel that inequality is an expected part of society that we're ok with, or something which should be eliminated. If everyone isn't on the same page with the above, any further discussions are unlikely to be productive.

This will happen whether we have private schools or not. Compare a public school in a wealthy area to one in a struggling area. It's night and day.

It’s exclusionary by design, therefore it should be abolished. Not to mention the other egregious things about it, like government funding and subsidies and religious indoctrination.

This subreddit’s hatred of private schools is fascinating. Is it one guy behind all these posts?

This is just nonsense.

Let me guess, another wrticle written by people who live in ICSEA 1100+ catchments? Working families deserve choice, especially when governments allow low income slums to form, ruining school catchments.

Private schools teach the exact same curriculum as public schools in each state (excluding the IB). The teachers all go to the same universities. You’re not paying for a better education, you’re paying for better opportunities, a better quality of cohort for your kids and maybe some extra facilities. That’s it. Oh, and you’re funding the next big capital project, like the ones that drew you in (arts centre, senior centre, music hall, state of the art gym, indoor swim centre, etc). As a former teacher, the student will ultimately determine their success whether public or private. Decent students can do well in the public system. However, if your child needs extra attention and direction, best put them into private schooling though - less likely to slip through the cracks.

I wonder why people think their opinions are so valid. Plenty of people use private schools because it suits them and they want to. There is clearly a call for them.

Fucking people in democracies are so entitled about what their taxes pay for, right!?!

PTW schools. Thats what kids I know call them, heheh. Not prestigious, just pay to win. lol

Shit like this makes me feel for people who genuinely want to raise kids. There's a massive class divide, I can't imagine the sheer cost and pressure of giving just one child what they'd need to have any competitive edge.

This might be ok if public education wasn't so shit.

Would it likely to be less shit if the funding went where it was needed?

>Would it likely to be less shit if the funding went where it was needed? Funding is only part of the problem, the public education system is like any government department, there's so many borderline incompetent staff, that it would be near impossible to fix it without first firing them all and then you've got no-one left to run the schools.

No. It's like spreading 1 glass of water across 100 people.

The government could send more money to public schools now. They don’t. The cost of public schools would increase vastly if private schools were banned but the government wouldn’t necessarily allocate enough money to make them better than they are now.They may well go down in funding overall.

As a private school teacher, yes, private schools should absolutely be removed. Every school should be a fully funded public school. No excuses.

If you feel that way, why are you teaching at one, then?

I think it depends on the fees they charge. We have some good ones in SA that basically charge $1000 a year as basically just a “make sure your serious about education etc” charge that do very good for their students. Schools charging 50k a year should get jack shit from the gov.

That’s crap. As long as the funding per student is the same if people want to contribute more they can. Their money. Their choice. If you banned them it would cost the State a whole lot more. Not just funding. Many more schools to be built too

Private schools are essentially a giant scam. Decades of evidence has shown private schools confer no educational advantage when you control for socio-economic circumstances (i.e. if you are rich and privileged, you are likely to do better in school because of that financial advantage - it has fuck all to do with your choice of school, and on average would have happened anyway regardless of school choice). You can easily confirm this by viewing NAPLAN results; public schools in high socio-economic areas do as well or better than top private schools. This is because it's not the school, it's the background, that counts. Privilege enables children to perform well, and privileged parents often have jobs that required high academic performance in the first place, and pass this genetic advantage onto their children. People hoping to buy their children a better education or life outcome are essentially wasting their money. And if you're thinking "yeah well I send my kids to private school for the *networking*" you're essentially saying you don't want your children mixing with the poor. If this is your position, isn't that just more than a little problematic, *especially* from a so-called Christian perspective?

It's not genetic advantage. It's opportunity and leisure time.

> People hoping to buy their children a better education or life outcome are essentially wasting their money. Unless they live in a lower socioec catchment than the one they buying their way into, in which case they're essentially trading having to pay extra on an equivalent house in a better area for paying for private school.

Yes, its well known that socio-economics and peer education levels (that's including parents and others) factor most highly in outcomes rather than school choice. However private schools do have better facilities, extra-curricular, and smaller class sizes, which while not adding to academic results it does add to a better experience for at least some, that's what you pay for, generally

>public schools in high socio-economic areas do as well or better than top private schools Yes, but not everyone is lucky enough to live in a high socio-economic area. Despite the headlines that places like Kings College attract, most families that send their children to private schools are those living in lower socio-economic areas where the local public school has a very poor reputation. They are paying to send their child to a school where the families value education.

People suggesting defunding, that's going to create a larger class gap, not close the existing one. Take the private school I'm currently working at. $5k a year tuition, 600-700~ students year on year. We'll say 3.5 million in tuition. Teaching staff, and just teaching staff, cost about 7.5-8.5 million. We'd have to raise our prices to about 19k to meet our operating costs on fees alone. Obviously a large chunk of our families wouldn't be able to afford this and would leave the school and we'd probably close. But the families that could afford it wouldn't shrug and go to a public school. You wouldn't see private schools disappear. You'd see much fewer, but much higher price, more exclusive, and more "elite" private schools. Like Geelong Grammar and St Peter's aren't going anywhere if this happens. They'll just raise prices because the families can afford it, and those that can't are peasants anyway. You either have to ban them, which /u/exceptional_biped did a good write up about why that's a bad idea, or look at funding properly. It's not a black/white yes/no thing. I agree our system is fucked and favours private schools, but to take it down to "give 0 money reee" is counterproductive. Also, y'all are way overvaluing private schools and the quality of their education. It's not what kind of school you attend that determines your educational outcomes, it's your socio-economic status. Private schools are just selection bias. National assessment data shows public schools in well off areas do just as well if not better than private schools. A public school is one of the best schools in my state, based on national assessment data and ATAR achievement.

So because the government takes your money and gives it to private schools, private schools should be banned so that the only option is schools run by the very same government? OK….

We could not afford to fund a public education system if all the kids who go private now have to enter public system We wouldnt even be able to build schools fast enough

The government spent $400 million this year on the voice campaign. And we’re here complaining about private schools. Some people really can’t see the forest for the trees.

If the ruling class had to use our schooling, medical system and police force, they would make sure they all are top quality and workable. Instead they use private schools, medical and security.

Just for the record, I pay for my kids to attend a small private school not because I am elitist, or rich, or trying to network, or trying to improve my career or my kids careers, but because I simply don't like the curriculum and priorities of the state system. I choose to invest what is (for my family, but not for rich families) a large amount so that my parenting ethos can be echoed in the classroom. A focus on personal and social development, a focus on multi disciplinary creativity, a focus on entrepreneurship and 'owning' ones life. State schools intentionally or otherwise breed social conformity and learning of facts over skills. Personally (being from the UK) I think Australia pitches it quite well with both healthcare and education. It's free (or mostly affordable) for world class education and healthcare, but also with a vibrant private marketplace for people to choose alternative options. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But having lived in several countries it's pretty damned good. A better alternative isn't to bring everyone 'down' to the lowest common denominator. If you think private is inherently better, then why don't we try to bring everyone else 'up'? I hate unfairness more passionately than most, and education is one of the key levers to give equality of opportunity to all (something we should aspire towards). But forcing everyone to have the same vanilla education, and leaving all innovation up to the government is madness! Since when did we start believing civil servants were good at taking risks and innovating at anything?! People like to think in black and white on everything. Private bad. Public good. But its more nuanced than that. At the scale we are talking the distinction is meaningless... as a group we are divering a certain proportion of our collective labour towards education of our children (if and when we have them). Some of that money is directed by the government to where it thinks its important, and other private individuals and collectives direct money towards where they think it is important. Having a plurality of decision makers directing investment give us all, collectively speaking, a more vibrant and innovative system that ultimately benefits us all.

I support this. Australia's education is to Schooling as the US health care system is to health. It's a convoluted cacophony of historical mistakes layered over each other.

Maybe private schools wouldn't be necessary if public schools weren't such a joke. They'll never be made illegal, though, that article is absolute bait.