If parents are worried about their tax dollars going to their child’s education, then they can send their kid to a public school.
Bit rich to talk about fairness when private schools discriminate against children based on their socio-economic class. Why should a school which isn’t open to the public get public money?
We live in a capitalist society, like it or not, if they want to run privately then they should have to survive privately. If they can’t survive then their business model is poor and they don’t deserve to survive.
Why do parents feel the need to use private education? Is it because the public system isn’t up to scratch? I wonder what might help.
'If parents are worried about their tax dollars going to their child’s education, then they can send their kid to a public school.'
That's not what I said - please re-read my post.
'Bit rich to talk about fairness when private schools discriminate against children based on their socio-economic class.'
What are you talking about? I've not heard of any marching in the streets lately as a result of socio-economic discrimination by private schools.
Should all schools - public and private - be free of fees? The money that the government allots to private schools doesn't remotely cover the costs of running them. As a former director of a private university I may have an some insight here. My eldest son is also a teacher in a private school.
I'd also love Manly to scrap admission fees totally, but I can't see it happening. Maybe Manly has a poor business model?
We live in a capitalist society, like it or not, if they want to run privately then they should have to survive privately. If they can’t survive then their business model is poor and they don’t deserve to survive.
Indeed we do live in a capitalist society. Imagine if, under that premise, all education attracted fees - no 'public/free' education at all. No,
we live in a 'pluralist' society. Australia embraces both free-market elements and government-supported elements. Seems to work well. Go with whatever education outcome floats your boat.
Survive privately? Under that logic, parents who send their kids to private schools should pay less tax. See if that passes muster in the next national plebiscite. It would certainly be
fair - why should you pay for what you're not using? - but welcome to a bigger can of worms.
'Why do parents feel the need to use private education? Is it because the public system isn’t up to scratch? I wonder what might help.;
I'm wondering if you read/understood my post at all. I did explain why - well at least one of the reasons.
OK - they are usually for the following reasons (with no particular weighting or order):
- Parents want their kids to go to a faith-based school (ethics).
- The parents believe that discipline is better in private schools.
- The parents are concerned about things they have heard about their local public school.
- The private school has subjects that are unique, and the parents or kids want this.
- The private school is in an easier location to get to.
- The parents went there - they want their kids to go there.
And I haven't even touched on the 'my kids will get better marks/be better than other kids', 'it's an aspirational school - only the best people go there' or 'networking will be better there' (all rather nauseating to me, I'll admit).
While we like to kid ourselves that we live in an egalitarian society, we do not. No-one on earth really does.
I don't think the answer is another Red October, though.
