Fernando MonteiroSubsidies to Private Schools: Yes or No?
June 25th 2009 12:10
It’s been in the news: should the government give subsidies to private schools for whatever purpose? The related question is whether the government should also subsidise the exclusive parents their children’s school fees.
This begs the question of why are there private schools beside public ones, why should private schools expect the government to pay for their luxurious approach to education and why should the no-body who pays taxes every year pay for that as well.
Let’s start from the beginning. Taxes paid to the government, in a welfare state such as our country Australia, are for the provision of essential services such as health and education, transportation, police, defence, social security etc.
Both rich and poor pay taxes to the government and these, at least conceptually, get somehow allocated into the above non-exhaustive list of social applications.
Milton Freedman, in his book Capitalism and Freedom, defended that rich people, who wanted to put their children into private schooling, could withdraw their contributed taxes or at least the slice of them that fitted the purpose of funding public education, and use it to pay their children’s private school.
While this construction may look very smart a priori, look into it now from the outside. You lost your job, and there’s many like you now-a-days, you are at the door of Centrelink in a cold winter morning and you witness this.
Mr Top Corporate stops his Porche 911 at the front door of Centrelink, gets out of the car whose lights flash compliantly, enters the edifice, joins the queue and, when finally it’s his turn, says: I earn one million a day – could you please refund my taxes so that I can pay for my children’s private school? The clerk behind the counter must have though it was fools day that day. Everybody around must have started laughing hilariously.
When the government collects taxes from society his obligation with regards to education is to provide the best schools and teachers necessary to educate the country’s children to a defined standard.
As with other services such as health, the basic principle the government follows is to set up a uniform method for achieving these goals which applies to the overall society, meaning with this that public education is the best it can be and is the same for all students. This is so because the government has to offer equal opportunities for all. Discrimination only happens when special needs call for it such as with students with disabilities or gifted students who get their own special school.
Now, if someone does not want their children to go to school with the children of the average, the blue collar or the migrant and prefers them to be in company of the well-to-do – because it’s their choice shouldn’t it also be their expense? Is this unfair?
As a matter of fact, if someone turns away from the schools the government provides him and is prepared to pay $24,000 or so per anum in private school fees per child, why then should he be given any government money at all, whether it is fees subsidies or school subsidies? On what basis?
Why should the hardworking people of this country, who pay most of the taxes collected by the taxation office, finance Mr Porche Carrera children’s private school? Why would the common wealth of Australia in any way subsidise the rich who turned away public schooling and engage in exclusivist and luxurious behaviour with regards to their children’s schooling?
I can’t find any good reason.
This begs the question of why are there private schools beside public ones, why should private schools expect the government to pay for their luxurious approach to education and why should the no-body who pays taxes every year pay for that as well.
Let’s start from the beginning. Taxes paid to the government, in a welfare state such as our country Australia, are for the provision of essential services such as health and education, transportation, police, defence, social security etc.
Both rich and poor pay taxes to the government and these, at least conceptually, get somehow allocated into the above non-exhaustive list of social applications.
Milton Freedman, in his book Capitalism and Freedom, defended that rich people, who wanted to put their children into private schooling, could withdraw their contributed taxes or at least the slice of them that fitted the purpose of funding public education, and use it to pay their children’s private school.
While this construction may look very smart a priori, look into it now from the outside. You lost your job, and there’s many like you now-a-days, you are at the door of Centrelink in a cold winter morning and you witness this.
Mr Top Corporate stops his Porche 911 at the front door of Centrelink, gets out of the car whose lights flash compliantly, enters the edifice, joins the queue and, when finally it’s his turn, says: I earn one million a day – could you please refund my taxes so that I can pay for my children’s private school? The clerk behind the counter must have though it was fools day that day. Everybody around must have started laughing hilariously.
When the government collects taxes from society his obligation with regards to education is to provide the best schools and teachers necessary to educate the country’s children to a defined standard.
As with other services such as health, the basic principle the government follows is to set up a uniform method for achieving these goals which applies to the overall society, meaning with this that public education is the best it can be and is the same for all students. This is so because the government has to offer equal opportunities for all. Discrimination only happens when special needs call for it such as with students with disabilities or gifted students who get their own special school.
Now, if someone does not want their children to go to school with the children of the average, the blue collar or the migrant and prefers them to be in company of the well-to-do – because it’s their choice shouldn’t it also be their expense? Is this unfair?
As a matter of fact, if someone turns away from the schools the government provides him and is prepared to pay $24,000 or so per anum in private school fees per child, why then should he be given any government money at all, whether it is fees subsidies or school subsidies? On what basis?
Why should the hardworking people of this country, who pay most of the taxes collected by the taxation office, finance Mr Porche Carrera children’s private school? Why would the common wealth of Australia in any way subsidise the rich who turned away public schooling and engage in exclusivist and luxurious behaviour with regards to their children’s schooling?
I can’t find any good reason.
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