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Australia’s frighteningly unequal funding system favours private schools, argues Jane Caro. How can we fix it? (theconversation.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/australia@aussie.zone
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Australia’s schooling system is among the most highly segregated in the OECD. Public schools educate the majority of disadvantaged students, while there is concentrated advantage in private schools.

This situation can be attributed, in large part, to our school funding arrangements.

A really informative article that explains how we got to where we are and what we can do about it. Australians must demand a fair and more intelligent system.

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[–] 20 points 3 months ago (4 children)

We fix it by taking back 100% of the tax-payer funded money going to private schools and giving it back to the public schools where it belongs.

If you want to send your kids to a private school or a religious school, then the financial burden should fall squarely on the shoulder of all people sending their kids there and not a singular cent should be brought from the tax pool.

It's beyond immoral that these elitist parasites send their filthy spawn to special schools that aren't accessible to the general public to get a "better education" yet have our taxes fund it.

The private and religious school systems should be dismantled and their assets and property should be restructured into public schools. Reclamation without compensation - and if anyone complains - public hanging.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Agreed. Always thought this, never understood why private schools get anything from government. How're we funding private education but whingeing about stuff like the NDIS or the public school system suffering? I'm going to guess that public school teachers are leaving the job at a higher rate than private so maybe the money could help retain some good teachers and resources that support them to be able to stay in the job without burning out for the scummy public kids (/s)?

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago

    Absolutely agreed.

    All the best teachers leave for better pay (who wouldn't in this fucked economy) and it's the public schools that are left to suffer.

    The wealthy fear an educated public, thats why there has been decades of coordinated political attacks against the public schooling system through underfunding/defunding, mismanagement, and archaic schooling systems/structures that haven't been functionally updated in centuries.

    And now the working class has seen what the wealthy are doing with their ill-gotten gains and we need to put a stop to it. Putting a 99% wealth tax on them would pay for the singular best education system in the globe ten-fold over. Imagine what else we could do if the wealthy and their companies were taxed fairly.

    What we've seen happen is by design, and everyone's had a gutful of it.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Buh buh buh but whhaaayyy should their taxes fund schools their kids aren't going too whaaa?!

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  • [–] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Do you want little johnny poorperson to be educated and working as your office drone or illiterate johnny poorperson smashing in your window and stealing your TV for meth

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    There are valid exceptions.

    There are students who live in isolated rural towns that can’t easily access secondary school in particular, who need assistance attending a boarding school or the like and all of these are private. The government offers this assistance as Isolated Childrens Allowance, which is delivered in two parts, a direct payment each term to parents and there’s also a boarding component paid to the school, if the kid is attending a boarding school.

    This includes those who live on grazing properties and farms. Quite often primary school is done by distance ed with a tutor employed on the station to help with classes. It exists for secondary as well but there are social costs; most opt to send kids to boarding school if they can.

    To offer a true public option around that where these could attend a public school, more regional public schools with boarding capability might be required, perhaps in larger towns which already have public schools.

    So yeah in the bush it’s not cut and dried.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    My only argument/retort is that with a wealth tax of 99%, it would completely, thoroughly and spectacularly fund for the production of large, public boarding schools with twice enough teachers to have low teacher-student ratios, other staff to assist with hygiene and food, etc so that the children were put into exceptionally good boarding schools.

    Even if this hypothetical school cost $500M per year to run, it would be worth it to make sure absolutely no children are left behind and with the assistance and means to pull themselves out of poverty.

    Collectively, we could be raking in hundreds of billions of dollars per year for these schools, free tertiary education, free public health. We don't need to divide ourselves between imaginary lines of difficulty when making sure our children are educated.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    Yeah look no argument here, at least not in funding public schools over private.

    But yeah, that’s one that is necessary, however it’s cut. If we were to take the private out of that problem, it’d mean investment in the same type of boarding school they provide.

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