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I am trying to balance my dislike of teachers generally with the basic logic inherent in their argument.

If I understand this correctly, students at a school will be punished because their teachers are hopeless by having less infrastructure?

This seems absurd to me.

As for teacher vouchers, they also seem a bit much as well. I really cannot understand the rationale behind such measures, but I would welcome anything that contributes to the destruction of the teacher’s union and a better history course.

How is this? At school I could not even pass their stupid essays, and than with my first essay at uni, I get a HD, wtf is wrong with the schools? answer: the teachers

I think you are missing the point here Liam. A voucher system doesn’t make a prospective student a true “market participant”.

One of the most important features of markets is substitute goods.

If I don’t like any of the options available in the Plasma TV store, I can say to hell with them and go buy a mountain bike to entertain myself with instead. This factor means that providers of those goods are under pressure to ensure that they don’t lose market share to possible substitutes.

Under a voucher scheme, the voucher will only be able to be spent on education. If it isn’t used, it is defaulted. This means that schools are still going to get the money no matter what. It’s not possible for the student to metaphorically take his bat and ball and go home.

The difference is that it will require schools to become more competitive in comparison to rival schools.

I disagree.

Let’s say a school like Claymore High School has a decline in students because parents use those vouchers to try to send their children to, say, St Ripoffus’s several suburbs away, because they do not like the chance of their children ‘getting ahead’ because of the name of their school, then doesn’t the voucher system provide no incentive for improvement? Schools are not like TV’s or Hatchback cars, they are living organisms that require constant support and resourcing to keep them going. Starving them of resources doesn’t make them improve, it makes them worse as they provide an even crappier education. Less funds through less vouchers being processed means less textbooks, the ‘better’ teachers get poached by St Rippoffus (now flush with cash thanks to vouchers due to its name alone), the leaky roof, the freezing classes, the library filled with books that look like they have been written by the Sumerians in cnueiform.

Meanwhile, St Rippoffus, due to its name, gets an influx of new students and their voucher money. With this extra money they can hire more teachers, poach some from other schools, get better books, computers and the like. Or they could build another golf range and rifle practice ground. Or they could just pocket the cash and enjoy a lazy two months in the Bahamas.

It is voodoo economics to think a voucher system means ‘good’ schools thrive and ‘bad’ schools die. We should have an education system where there is NO bad school, because as citizens in a democracy we all have the right to be informed and active, and a bad education has constantly been shown to be a massive impediment to achieving that.

No excuses, and no ifs, vouchers are a scam and a vicious effort to turn a universal, democratic institution into another money making business where the well-off get educated, and the less well-off children may as well dig coal or sew clothes instead because that’s how bad their education will become.

“Schools are not like TV’s or Hatchback cars, they are living organisms that require constant support and resourcing to keep them going.”

So does every other business in the world. They seem to do ok. Schools are no different to restaurants in that matter. If they lose all their customers, they go broke.

This is the whole point. If there is no risk of going broke what is the incentive to maintain or improve the standard of service on offer? None.

This is why you get a better lunch at a nearby deli than you do at the school/university cafeteria.

“We should have an education system where there is NO bad school”

And we should also have a system where milk and honey flows in the creek, champagne falls from the sky and nobody ever gets sick or dies.

But we are talking about the real world.

Even if you gave public shools unlimited funding, there would still be bad schools because there are bad teachers. In a competitive market system, these people get sacked. In the public system they get tenure.

Yobbo, if a parent doesn’t want to send their kid to one public school they’re perfectly capable of sending them to another one. If they’re getting beaten up, or they’re failing, or whatnot, that’s what a lot of parents do. There are substitute goods within the public school system.
What you seem to want is for some schools to fail as enterprises for the good of the successful schools. That’s great if you’re a true free-market Kool Aid drinker—but it sucks if you’re one of the students.
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I’m very neglectful and should mention occasional stoush.net commenter Oz’s review of a seminar on ‘What Makes A Good School’.

…there really is no such thing as a “private school” as they all receive public funding. Rather the focus should be made on making private schools accountable for receiving that money and to accept certain standards and conditions on that funding.

“Yobbo, if a parent doesn’t want to send their kid to one public school they’re perfectly capable of sending them to another one.”

That’s not always true Liam. Public schools are only obligated to accept students who fall within their zone. They will frequently reject any applicants from outside areas to keep student numbers down.

And if their kid has had problems then they are probably out of luck because no school, public or private wants to accept problem kids unless they have to.

In addition, since neither the principal or any teachers will receive a difference in pay for receiving another student in a public school, there is little incentive for them to want to take them or even attract them.

Private schools are naturally incentivised to attract more students because more students = more money. And the best way to attract more students is to improve the quality of the service you offer.

I am not saying that public school teachers deliberately go out of their way to make them unattractive or anything, just that there are much stronger incentives in the private sector than the public. The same is true for any public vs private business.

Both public and private businesses have the incentive of wanting respect and to offer a valued service - but private businesses have the extra incentive of profit.

The trouble is that schools are like hospitals - they are an essential service and have to get it right for everyone. Is this the case? Of course not. Should it? It definitely should, and the profit motive will not be the means to deliver it.

Liam gives one good explanation why the capitalist means of ‘weeding out’ the competition is not a goer, but here’s another - what is the basis for schools being weeded out? As my original comment makes clear, schools will not necessarily win out on the basis of scholastic results or the quality of their teaching, or even resources. It may be part of it, but so is brand name and reputation. Kings, Sydney Grammer, Trinity and co could be giving a mediocre education compared to Chester Hill High or Penrith High, but they will always attract large numbers of students paying high fees. That explains why these elite private schools have whacked up their fees by an abnormal amount, but there has been no discernable reduction in demand for places. A similar thing happens in higher ed, where Sydney Uni can provide a mediocre or substandard degree (and in a number of disciplines does in my opinion) yet still have loads of students wanting to go there, whilst UWS or UTS are badly funded and have lower reputations, and deserve more support because they can and in some cases do provide a decent degree in a number of disciplines.

In this scenario, merit will not necessarily win out, even on free market principles. But my real point is NO school should ever be substandard.

“And we should also have a system where milk and honey flows in the creek, champagne falls from the sky and nobody ever gets sick or dies.

But we are talking about the real world.”

Thanks for that sterling contribution. It’s called an ‘essential service’. Let me put this question back - if the private sector and competition are so great, let’s privatise the Police. According to the argument being put forward, there’s no incentive for police to do their jobs properly as there’s no competition. Those Police Officers get their salary no matter what sort of job they do, so let’s privatise it and see how safe our community will be when the private sector runs policing and lock up corporate criminals (whoops, they won’t do that, that’s a potnetial business parter of the parent company we’re talking about there) and bust drug dealers and make sure the evidence gets burnt (or maybe they’ll sell it on…it’s all about profit and the invisible hand, this time in the evidence room).

Or, let’s privatise the army, hey the army is not accountable as it is only in competition with Indonesia, China etc, not with other Australian armed forces that could do the job better if the Australian Army is slack and lazy.

Essential services have accountabilities - they’re not based on profit, that’s true - but in schools the’re called parents, students, principals, Government and communities.

There are already private police (otherwise known as security guards) and private armies (otherwise known as mercenaries or contractors). They get a lot of work. Your analogy makes very little sense.

“As my original comment makes clear, schools will not necessarily win out on the basis of scholastic results or the quality of their teaching, or even resources. It may be part of it, but so is brand name and reputation.”

So some parents have a different idea of what consitutes a good education than what you do. Why do you care?

If a parent is willing to pay an extra $10,000 a year to have their child go to an “elite” school just for the brand name, why is it any concern of yours?

Parents that are more concerned with the quality of teaching and curriculum can send their kids somewhere that specialises in that area.

Parents that realise their kid isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and would be more suited to working with his hands rather than uni can send them to a school that emphasis vocational training or sport.

There are already schools around like this.

My brother was never cut out to be a lawyer so parents sent him to an agricultural school where he learned things like shearing, slaughtering and how to repair machinery. He is now a shearer and makes 2 grand a week. What help would learning calculus have been?

A lot of aboriginal kids with football talent go to Gerard Neesham’s Clontarf college in Perth where I can guarantee you the emphasis isn’t on English Literature.

Parents who decide that their kids future most likely lies in the world of business and banking send their kids to elite schools like Kings or Wesley College because that’s the best way to start making contacts with the business powerbrokers of the future.

If you want to be an engineer or a doctor then you don’t need that sort of stuff and would rather go to a high school that puts academic achievement above all else.

Different strokes for different folks. I don’t see how a decision to send your kid to Kings or wherever is any different than sending them to a vocational school.

Of course this sort of specialisation is only possible because we have a private school system. The one size fits all mentality of public schools is terrible in comparison.

Sorry that comment got stuck in the queue, Yobbo.

Private schools will always exist, but there is no way that public schools are a ‘one-size fits all system’. They don’t turn their back on anyone Yobbo, which is the difference between the public and private system. In fact, part of the allure of the private system comes from the fact that they exclude kids who are troubled or just different so people feel they can keep their little darlings safe. Bah!

In the state school I teach in there are blind kids, ones in wheelchairs, ones with profound learning disabilities, ones with profound social and behavioural problems, bright kids who will study everything from engineering to medicine, exceedingly gifted kids working on extension activities and being supported to learn independently and all the kids in between. We enjoy them all, we live with the problems they bring from home and we try to give them some hope for the future. Our school isn’t shiny but we just got a regional award for literacy, and after years of hard work to improve the school we are now able to say that we are taking kids away from the local private schools, and from other public schools in our catchment.

I don’t have a particular problem with private schools and do understand why people want to send their kids there, but I don’t think there is any reason to run down the public system and then dress up the flight to the private system as ‘choice.’

“but I don’t think there is any reason to run down the public system and then dress up the flight to the private system as ‘choice.’”

If it’s not “choice” then what is it?

“In fact, part of the allure of the private system comes from the fact that they exclude kids who are troubled or just different so people feel they can keep their little darlings safe.”

Duh. This is one of the best things about the private system. Why would you want to send your kid to a school full of delinquents?

it’s not choice for those who can’t afford it, and are left with crumbling infrastructure while their tax dollars subsidise the snobs down the street.

the snobs should have to pay full freight for their choice to leave the public system, because they are never excluded from the public system while the working class kids are practically speaking excluded from the private system because they can’t afford it.

if it sounds like class warfare, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. people can call it what they like but i think it’s the right way to run the show.

i don’t think it would be politically possible to do, but it doesn’t stop me wishing it was any more than it stops rabid free marketeers wanting to kill off the state system and privatise the lot.

“working class kids are practically speaking excluded from the private system because they can’t afford it.”

Define working class? Plumbers make $100,000 a year now.

Private schools also offer to scholarships to academically gifted students who can’t afford the fees. And athletically gifted students, a large percentage of whom are Aboriginal.

And kids who go to private schools are not “snobs”. They are just normal kids whose parents want them to have the best possible education. Many parents save every penny they earn in order to send their kids to a private school you know, they aren’t all flying in from Hong Kong in Learjets.

hmmm…

Elite schools’ fees surge despite subsidy

SYDNEY’S most elite private schools have increased their fees by as much as 53.4 per cent in the past four years, despite receiving more money than they are entitled to under the Federal Government’s funding formula.

so the money we’re putting in is making private schools more accessible for all. goody goody.

what’s the minister for education’s excuse?

“Non-government schools are independent organisations, and their governing bodies are responsible for setting fees,” she said. “Parents should raise any concerns about fees with the relevant school.”

that’s a nice excuse isn’t it?

i’m handing over moeny to make the schools more accessible, but you shouldn’t blame me if it doesn’t work…

elite public schools don’t need huge whacks of cash. it certainly provides no appreciable benefit when in spite of the massive funding the fees are still rocketing up. if it’s not delivering a good, the funds should be withdrawn. full stop.