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But they still choose to do it. Giving them this choice is a good thing. Do you think it represents a 'waste' of money for them, and they should buy siome more plasma TVs instead?

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You've got that backwards. Private schools would make a furtune if education was left in private hands. The reason it cannot 'compete' is that the government provides a competing service for free, then makes those most likely to choose a private school pay far more than their fair share to support that free service, without giving them a choice. In other words, it is not operating in a capitalist economy. It is operating in parallel to a socialised one. You cannot apply two different standards to the competing systems. Hence my suggestion of a subsidy at least as high as is necessary to minimise government expenditure.

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So is public education, but you are not demanding we get rid of that. Perhaps because you sift the goal posts?

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I see. The fact that education is a public good makes no distinction between public and private education. Nor do I see any way that it can guide on the choice of whether to subsidise private schools.

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No Sennex. In economic terms it is the fault of the government in providing a 100% subsidy to its competitors.

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You still haven't defined that purpose, or explained how it is defeated. Unless you are suggesting that market based capitalism in competition with a 100% government subsidy is the purpose of private schooling. Is that what you think the purpose is? If so, the purpose would be defeated by a subsidy.

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No way!  FD  would never abuse his Admin power........never!

Duh.

freediver wrote on Dec 28^th, 2009 at 1:00pm:


What does that have to do with the topic.  You're shifting the goal posts of the topic.  I don't deny those that choose to do it.  I oppose the subsidy as it stands for private schools but I am not completely against a subsidy.  See caveats above.


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If all schools operated on a private enterprise basis there would be fewer educated people.  You can apply two different standards as one is public and one is private.  Public schools have a certain level of standard expected of them and a Private school has a higher standard (or so it is believed by most).


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LOL.  That's funny.  To answer the question, no.  As I've stated education is a public good, so it makes sense for the public (govt if u like) to run it.

If private operators wish to also enter the market, they may on their own merits with the sole exception being the curriculum.  Thus if they cannot provide the necessary capital or compete with others in the private market (given the funds they receive from their investors) then they should fail as the market dictates.

You could raise the States argument again and say they're publicly funded but even those funds are not a bottomless pit as States are revenue constrained.  Also they need to recognise on startup they will competing against a public sector.

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See my statement above.  At no point have I proposed to remove wholesale subsidies from private schools.

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See my remark above about funding.

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Private Enterprise.  Once again see the remark above about funding.

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Brief Tangent: I'm not real happy with the search feature on the forum either, it makes finding past threads and posts quite difficult but I'm doubtful that anything can be done about it.

freediver wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2010 at 9:20am:


Which specific remark are you referring to?  I think you may have misunderstood the point.  I am happy to address it.

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The topic is about public vs. private education and I've addressed the subsidy issue as well as the result.  How is that shifting the goal posts?

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But they are not just competing with the private market. Their major competitor is the free education.

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I've attempted to use your definition of free market capitalism, the way you initially described it would not be the way I would have.  A Private school should fail just as a private company would.  Nothing ordained as the 'free' market is the free market because there are often interventions.  There is no 100% subsidy to a public school against the private school.  It makes sense for a public school to be funded publicly.  It makes no sense for a private school to be publicly funded beyond the curriculum.  There's that caveat again, I don't see how that is vague or meaningless at all.

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It is cumbersome and not always effective.  This is not a slight on you or your site just my findings.

Thanks Shark.

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How and why does it make sense? Because the names would be proper?

What do you mean by 'beyond the curriculum'?

freediver wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2010 at 2:06pm:


Because one is public and one is private.  I do not understand what you do not get by that.

By "beyond the curriculum", I mean the essentials of education and any extras that is endorsed by the State.

After all the essentials would just lead us to the three Rs but not so much 'rithmetic anymore sadly but then you have your PE and what I would broadly call social studies.

So in short the curriculum endorsed by the State that the school is hosted in.  If they want a private swimming pool, it is funded by capital raised by private enterprise.  If they want to teach something not in the endorsed State curriculum, thats fine but its funded by capital raised by private enterprise.

It is really quite simple, the divide between what public and private schools provide is just too great, and the simple fact is that people will always pay a premium for getting what they believe to be better quality.

Education is a basic service that all the community needs access to, and the quality of service provided has lifelong benefits/consequences for the whole society, and if anything in the world should be run by our governments, it certainly should be education.

The whole argument about "choice" works from the premise of a two tier system, with one superior, and one inferior, and while this indeed is the case at present, there is no reason why it should remain that way.
Protecting the status quo is OK if no better options are available, but we do have the option of improving the public education system to bring it up to absolute world best standard, and this seems to me what we really should be striving for.

Sure we can seek to entrench the divide between the haves and have nots, and see individuals handicapped by the economic constraints of their social position, or we can seek to provide a system which offers all kids the chance to be the absolute best they can be, by providing an education system that allows them to fully realise the potential they are born with, irrespective of whether dad is the gardener or the CEO of a huge corporation.

Some will think of such an ideal as being too socialist, or even as a lowering of standard for the most elite, but I disagree, I believe it is within our abilities to provide our kids with a first class education through a full public school system, and all the extra curricular activities that certain people desire for their kids would be just that, "Extra" curricular, and I don't think anybody would have any problem with that.