The Classic Fallacies
Saturday, January 01, 2000
The Weekend Australian (28/10) ran four letters against the new Kemp funding scheme for non-government schools. They neatly encapsulate four classic fallacies about the the Australian school funding system. Let's clear up these hoary old chestnuts once and for all.
The solution of P.H. Juhola, where all the money and all the children go to state schools, would not work because the state system would suddenly have much less money per child. Families at present using non-state schools are saving the taxpayer over $2 billion.
Brent Howard assumes the state system caters to the less well-off. If often does, but it also services the majority of families earning over $1500 per week. How come these people deserve 100% funding if their neighbours at Kings School don't deserve even 31%?
I agree with Russell Boyle that government should provide greater educational funding to needier children, but he never explains why only state-run schools should be permitted to service these children.
And Leanne Thomson is trotting out the old AEU trick, complaining that private schools are getting most of the federal funding, without revealing that the other form of funding, state funding, is vastly greater and almost all goes to state-run schools! Misleading by omission.
Perhaps now we can have some more constuctive debate.
Philip O'Carroll