Self-governing State Schools
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
I am responding to your article on state schools needing adequate toilets and classrooms (April 26). I sympathise with the principal, having run a school budget myself for 25 years. But there's something the public should know about the billions that go into the state system.
State schooling consumes more dollars per child than most of us non-state schools. The problem is that too much of the state budget is sucked up by the central bureaucracy.
Schools not under the Ministry, mostly operating on fewer dollars, generally deliver better outcomes. More self-government would improve state schools. So it's obvious where the necessary increase in local school operating funds should come from.
Philip O'Carroll