Prirvate school failures

The market for school education can't possibly function unless customers are well informed. In turn, it beggars belief that some Christian schools demand both the right to discriminate against students and staff as well as the right to keep their discrimination secret.

Many private schools argue that it is not just the swimming pools and manicured lawns that justify their high fees, but the "values" they impart on their students.

But what are those values? How can parents who are in the market for different values make an informed choice if schools are not up-front about whom they choose to discriminate against and why?

Occasionally those who manage Australia's private schools are candid in revealing their values, such as in 2017 when the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, threatened to fire all teachers employed by the church who entered into a same-sex marriage. Too often though, information of this nature is kept hidden.

If a parent wants to send their child to a school that expels gay students, or if a school wants to position itself in the market as a "gay student-free school", then clear information about each school's policies must be made available.

Elite private schools are booming in terms of enrolments and their facilities. Scots College plans to spend $25.1 million upgrading its library to look like a Scottish castle. Cranbrook's $75 million redevelopment includes a new aquatic centre and drama theatre and St Catherine's $62.5 million redevelopment includes a new orchestra pit and ballet studio.

It's hard to see the long-run boost to Australia's productivity that might come from such investments. And it's even harder to see why the private school fees that fund these expensive hobbies are exempt from the GST.

Whether schools that can afford new orchestra pits deserve public funding is an important democratic consideration. So too is the question of whether private schools should be allowed to discriminate against their students and staff while receiving money from the taxpayer.

For decades governments and private schools have concealed these questions from the public but now, thanks to the Christian conservatives in the Coalition, the cat is out of the bag.

Back in 2004, The Australia Institute published a report entitled The Accountability of Private Schools to Public Values. The paper included survey results that showed 89 per cent of Australians were opposed to private schools having the right to expel gay students. Only 8 per cent supported the position.

But over the past 14 years the proportion of students going to private schools has risen dramatically, as has the public funding for those schools.

Despite the Howard government's rhetorical commitment to "mutual obligation", for 14 years there has been little political interest in obliging the private schools that receive vast amounts of public money to conform to public expectations regarding treatment of their students and staff.

The privatisation of Australian schools is another failed neoliberal policy experiment. Costs are up, quality is down, access to quality education is less equal and discrimination is still legal.

Luckily, regardless of whether Australians think schools are an essential service that should never have been privatised, or that market principles are the best way to run an education system, recent polls confirm most Australians want schools to stop discriminating.

Who says Australian politics is too tribal to get anything done these days? The values of Scott Morrison's alma mater, Sydney Boys High School, were encapsulated in their motto "with truth and courage". A little of both should lead to a big change.

Richard Denniss is the chief economist for The Australia Institute.