Posted on 04/14/2007 1:18:37 AM PDT by Dundee
PARENTS of school-aged children can be forgiven for feeling punch-drunk after a week of big talk but little action towards making Australia's education system the best it can be. Parents really need only understand the following: first, they are no closer to getting a clear idea of how individual schools perform to enable an informed choice; second, education unions remain obsessed with class-war politics; third, the Labor state governments, held hostage by the education unions, refuse to entertain federal Education Minister Julie Bishop's plan that teachers be paid for performance rather than length of service; and finally, the best that state governments could come up with on a national curriculum was yet another bureaucracy...
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The Australian supports public education but also supports the right of parents to choose a private school if they wish. ...many parents make a great financial sacrifice to provide a private school education for their children. We support merit-based pay to promote excellence in teaching and we support the provision of quality information that allows the ranking of one school against another, both public and private, to enable parents to make an informed decision... Parents deserve to be properly armed with knowledge and the power to make their decisions. ...the most equitable, transparent system for education is the allocation of vouchers that enable parents to spend their public education dollar at any institution they like. Such a system would encourage schools, whether private or independent, to perform in order to attract students. There would be an added incentive to reward good teachers properly and for schools to provide the sort of information parents need to make a decision. The Government and Labor should consider introducing a voucher system as policy for the next election.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
I’d love such a system, but it just isn’t going to fly politically. It’s time to try something else.
On possibility is to offer a refund of taxes paid to the federal/state/local governments for public schools if you already are paying money to private school. There’s no reason to pay twice for the same service.
I think the public would be at least somewhat sympathetic to the “no double billing” argument.
Ummm... this is about Australia where the voucher system hasn’t got anywhere near the same public hearing as it has in the US.
In Australia, it could fly politically.
Most Australians already accept the principle that the government should provide some funding to private schools. They don’t get as much as government schools, but they do get a substantial amount - last I checked state schools get around $10,000 per student, private schools around $6,000.
At the moment state aid to private schools is allocated directly by the Commonwealth government based on a formula, but it could potentially be done by a voucher system.
The money is already there, and already being spent. And both the major Federal level parties support the idea in principle.
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