On 8/22/01 9:22 PM, "Emlyn O'regan" <oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au> wrote:
>
> Actually, I think the private schools here do get state funding as well,
> although I'm not sure of the level of funding. But what I'd like to see is
> funding available such that a private school could be set up to provide
> "free" education, relying on the same level of funding that public schools
> receive; not glamorous, I'm sure, but able to do things differently to the
> norm. Also, there could be a whole slew of alternatives available, which
> would go from costing parents a little bit extra, up to costing a whole lot
> extra.
>
> I think I'm proposing something different to James, which is that I think
> the public school system should probably be privatised, while government
> funding remains intact. But what we are both saying is that the decision to
> fund only a single style of school, "public schools", makes it very
> difficult for alternatives to exist, unless the target market of those
> alternatives are not sensitive to price (or in fact use the price as a
> status symbol).
I find this perfectly acceptable, actually; I wasn't really proposing
anything. When you consider that most good private schools spend far less
than the ~$10,000 per student that the government does in many places, I
would be delighted to see private institutions vying for the opportunity to
get that same amount of money to teach children. With this kind of profit
at stake, private schools would be falling all over themselves trying to
find ways to encourage parents to send children to their schools.
It would fix the absurd situation where what private schools would classify
as "obscenely profitable", government schools classify as "underfunded".
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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