Comments on: Was federal private school funding a mistake?

By: Parkos

Parkos — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 23:42:42 +0000

Homer,
agent orange, white, pink etc all contained dioxins which are well known to cause cancer. How do you know more than 100 years of international medical research?
Is it because you know the great man Jason Soon??
Well I have done some research into the history of the Soon family and their business on the Malay peninsula and I have some footage that will shock you all and explain a lot about the moral dilemmas that many have faced through exposure to Catallaxy. All will revealed in a week or so..

BTW Balwyn High School (a non academically selective state school) is one of the worst schools in Australia for being choosy about students, many social workers complain about it. The private schools take just about anyone with the dosh, even JC’s offspring.

In English, the word private derives from the term deprived, meaning deprived of public exposure. Given the transparent walls Kennet placed on the Monash freeway overlooking Scotch it is not really private or deprived in most senses of the word. This is why the English public schools are termed as such.
Once we get the terminology up to date with the contemporary situation in Australia then we can get on with an accurate debate. Tally Ho!

Can homeschoolers pocket the vouchers as cash and get carbon credits for not driving the kids to school Brocky style??

By: Bring Back EP at LP

Bring Back EP at LP — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 01:06:58 +0000

I know that Steve but that it is the nearest comparing apples with apples I can think of.

Andrew,

Thanks but that ties with the above comment I made.

When public schools can choose thir own pupils then you can do a decent survey or private schools must accept pupils that public schools do.

The spending on ‘perceptions reminds me of a heated debate one had with Con sciacca on veterans affairs.
Despite there being NO difference in cancer rates between those exposed to agent Orange and those of the general population the Government spent money on the veterans because the veterans thought there was!

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:54:40 +0000

The studies done by the Australian Council for Educational Research show that private schools still get better results even after you control for all the non-school factors know to affect educational outcomes - for the kids who aren’t already in the top few percent (those who go to selective schools) there is likely to be value in private school education, on average.

Total resources vary significantly around the non-government sector. From memory, the Catholic schools on average spend less per student than government schools, but other private schools on average spend more.

By: Steve Edney

Steve Edney — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:09:23 +0000

Homer you can’t “put someone into a selective school” you have to sit an exam. From memory selective schools tend to get about the results you would expect from the quality of students going into them, they aren’t doing anything exceptional.

By: Bring Back EP at LP

Bring Back EP at LP — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 23:35:51 +0000

closet socialists!!

The only reason why private schools cost less are the huge fixed costs of the public sector ie the buildings and other infrastructure that the state has spent on providing education to all children. ( Incidentally Rajat your hope will never be realised as there will always be parents who cannot pay for private schools.)

Has anyone ever taken out these costs as we are told to do in accounting 101?

It has been some time since I looked at (expensive) private school students getting into University but my memory has it that in NSW it was far far better to put your student into a selective high school than a private school.

One other thing. Private schools can decide on who comes to their school whilst public schools cannot.
This is the main reason for the perceived discipline problems.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 23:03:12 +0000

Homer - This is the absolute vs relative political positions again. If the ‘right’ had held out for its preferred position we’d probably have ended up like the UK or US. Given that alternative, some state funding of private schools is the preferable alternative.

By: Rajat Sood

Rajat Sood — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 22:32:16 +0000

Well, Homer, I guess I fall into that category. I support subsidies (or tax rebates, etc) in cases where there are clear positive externalities from an activity. I understand there is strong evidence that primary and secondary schooling does confer such externalities, but I am more sceptical about tertiary education. I would prefer all schools to be private, but that’s probably a long way away. I’m also less sanguine than other liberals that parents, if given enough tax relief, will choose to spend it on their children’s education. A voucher scheme provides greater confidence this will happen.

By: Bring Back EP at LP

Bring Back EP at LP — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 22:20:48 +0000

why is it that some many people who are ‘right wingers ‘ or support ‘private enterprise’ are so keen for private schools to eat on the taxpayers teat?

Closet National party supporters!

By: Rajat Sood

Rajat Sood — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 10:56:49 +0000

Sorry, Andrew, got carried away…

I agree that State provision is likely to lead to lower quality education and also lower positive externalities, to the extent they exist.

By: Rajat Sood

Rajat Sood — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 10:53:58 +0000

Actually, having thought about this a bit further, I think that a voucher scheme would only result in more aggregate education spending than no government spending (assuming no financing issues) if it provided a variable subsidy that was positively related to how much parents spent. For example, the voucher could be worth $1 for every $1 spent by parents, reflecting the fact that 50% of the benefits of education accrued to society at large. A fixed dollar voucher (eg $10,000 pa per child) would probably simply ‘crowd out’ private spending by the same amount because like a lump sum tax, it would not change the privately optimal level of the activity. For example, if prior to the voucher parents found it privately optimal to spend $10k pa on their child, this implies that they didn’t think it was worthwhile to spend $10,001 on education. If with a voucher they now can get a $10k pa education for their child for ‘free’, it doesn’t change the fact that spending even an extra $1 pa is not privately worthwhile (ie the 10,001th dollar spent has a PV of