So, the leader of the Opposition, Mark Latham, has come out and taken a stand. He wants to level the playing field a bit and shift funding from “wealthy” private schools to smaller independent and Catholic schools. A cynic might say, “Well, that’s a clever move to get the popular vote. It’s not like Mr. Latham will be alienating non-Liberal voters, anyway.”

At uni today, we discussed the issue of government funding of prestigious private schools. Most people have an opinion on this issue because we all went to either a public or private school. I went to the local public school. It was the most fantastic place for me, with great facilities and teachers.

In debating, we were taught to never base arguments on analogy (because analogies can be produced for any side of a debate). But at the risk of offending my old English teacher, I will bring one up that I heard a few years ago.

“If the Government provides a bus and you don’t want to take it, don’t expect the Government to subsidise your Mercedes.”

That is, there is a perfectly serviceable option already and if you don’t like it, tough luck, you snob. This kind of argument resonates strongly with the Aussie Battler.

The flip side is:

“Everyone who pays their taxes should get equal Government support. If someone chooses to sacrifice more of his/her wealth for the education of his/her children, well that’s his/her choice to make. The Government shouldn’t penalise them for valuing education.”

This argument makes me nod and think, “Yeah, that’s right.” Although I am mostly Lefty, I have Rightish leanings in that I’m strongly pro-individual-choice.

In fact, private school students get less funding than public school students. The Government is penalising them for taking a burden off the taxpayer.

The downfall in the pro-private-school-funding argument is that not everyone is in a position to choose to send their kid to a well-equipped private school. Can you imagine not having any real option except to send your child to the run-down, poor-performing local high school, while the private school next door is lobbying the Government for more money because it only has one swimming pool? Don’t laugh, this is exactly what happened when I was in Year 12.

Mark Latham has come out saying that he will distribute funding on a needs basis. His rationale is, “Well, if you can afford to pay $12,000 a year in school fees, obviously you don’t need Government money.” The private schools say that not all their students are rich. Many families make massive sacrifices to send their kids to private schools. If Government funding is withdrawn, then fees will have to increase (or standards will decrease), making a private school education even less accessible. Private schools truly would become the domain of wealthy families (if they’re not already).

What can we conclude? I don’t know about you but I can’t make up my mind. In Utopia, every school would be a public school as good as my high school — and there would be no differences in religion and values to teach because that just makes things complicated (I’m not dissing the teaching of religion in school, just saying that it would make my simple Utopia impossible).