The public versus private education debate doesn’t make anybody look good.

When that very knowing, overflowing, easy-going paladin, Chris Pyne, the Minister for Education, began hurling grenades over the content of the national curriculum, he had only just put his Gonski debacle to rest. The Op Ed industrial complex went into overdrive pumping out the usual sausages of suspect quality: private schools exist at the expense of public schools; taxpayer funds shouldn’t be used to indoctrinate kids in religion. It’s all so unfair. Ghettos of privilege.

Then again, it’s not like the private school system does itself any favours by being defended almost exclusively by handwringers. Very little thought goes into the argument in favour of private schools — class warfare, discrimination against private schools, and so on and so forth.

Indeed, the most outspoken cheerleader of private schools, Kevin Donnelly, thought so little that they rewarded he by making him a reviewer of the national curriculum.

With all these spot fire debates flaring up around the place, we should be surprised that there hasn’t been greater attention placed on the big policy questions. What is the purpose of education? How do we know if we have an effective education system? Why do we have a government-regulated education system at all?

Unfortunately, answering these questions requires us to dip our toes into the dreaded ‘ideology’ discussion. We could plausibly argue that we want our education system to produce first-rate thinkers who can understand equations (both the simple and quadratical) while quoting the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes. On the other hand, we could argue that education is about equalising economic outcomes for the population, providing a way for kids from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds to access white collar jobs. Where some might see culture as the driving motivation for education, others might see skills as the key factor.

Maybe this dichotomy is completely wrong. Maybe we should frame it in terms of individual outcomes rather than systemic. Some might assert that we want the education system to produce a generation of critical thinkers, promoting the value of empirical evidence and commonsense reasoning. Others might assert the complete opposite, believing the education system should produce a generation of critical thinkers who value abstract thinking and analytical reasoning. Others might disagree with all the assertions listed so far, and make an impassioned plea for the education system to produce a generation of critical thinkers who could champion human rights and civil liberties. Meanwhile, there are probably submissions from various think tanks imploring the education system to produce a generation of critical thinkers who would be better off if we scrapped minimum wage.

Although there are few absolutists in the education debate, the differences in priorities affects the way we argue about priorities. Do we want more science education for primary and secondary school students? Is it more important to learn about Chinese culture (which Anglo kids won’t learn at home), or English culture (which Anglo kids should learn at home)? Shakespeare or Wu Cheng’en? Should the average high school graduate be able to spot my hilarious — though somewhat hamfisted — Gilbert and Sullivan references? Of course, kids aren’t learning history and culture at home, so they need schools to act as surrogate parents.

If we don’t care what the kids are taught, then we look for the most cost effective ways of giving kids something resembling an education. This is where the public conversation has invariably turned up. Luke Mansillo, writing for The Guardian, argued:

The way our schools are funded is a matter of political philosophy – and it’s curious that any Coalition government would not seek to stop this increase. We can all agree that education is a collective want in every western democracy, and one that provides material benefits. In Australia, Britain and most of the developed world, education is provided through government schools. And as the collective want of education provision is provided for through these public schools, there is no need for governments to provide precious public resources to those who opt out.

We wouldn’t accept this argument in any other public policy debate. We can all agree that housing is a collective want in every western democracy, and one that provides material benefits. In Australia, Britain and most of the developed world, housing is provided through public housing schemes. And as the collective want of housing is provided for through these public housing schemes, there is no need for government to provide rent assistance to people who choose not to live in those homes. Imagine if the government said that you had to see a particular doctor (not of your choosing) else you’d fail to access Medicare benefits. Or if going to Monash instead of Melbourne meant that you were excluded from receiving a HELP loan.

This is also the context for the national curriculum ‘debate’. Most people bickering about the national curriculum would be hard pressed to tell you what was in it. Yet we had the opponents of a review claiming that the content of the national curriculum was somehow an uncontestable policy decision because ‘experts’ had crafted it. These same people will argue until they vomit a kidney about what services should be provided under the Medicare Benefits Scheme (brought to you by Experts™), but don’t want anybody arguing about what the content of a national curriculum should be. When you don’t really care what the outcomes of an education system should be, you’re happy to wash your hands of the matter and leave the decisions to somebody else. When you do care, you get involved.

We could have a really serious conversation about education policy in Australia. Just look atMansillo’s article again:

Governments pay $15,768 on average per public school student and $8,546 per private school student, yet private schools get $1.2m a year more funding from all sources than public schools. [...] Interestingly, a University of Queensland study of NAPLAN results recently debunked conventional wisdom that having a child in a private school leads to better academic results.

So privately educated kids are less of a burden on taxpayers than publicly educated kids, and publicly educated kids end up with comparable outcomes? Why is this a debate? In what universe do we not say: ‘Oh, this is wonderful! Keep the system as it is’? More worryingly, missing from Mansillo’s article is an analysis of what would happen if we took the $8,546 per private school student away. Clearly, it would make private school education less affordable and would increase demand for government services. Would it improve education outcomes? What education outcomes would Mansillo like to see?

Until the education system coughs up some opinion writers who are capable of tackling the bigger policy questions, we’re going to see this small potatoes debate replayed over and over again. Where we should have a serious discussion about education policy and the role we want private schools to take in helping us achieve education goals, we’ve got a third rate high school debate going on.

It isn’t helping anybody.

Mark Fletcher is a Canberra-based blogger and policy wonk who writes about conservatism, atheism, and popular culture. He blogs at OnlyTheSangfroid. This article was originally published on AusOpinion.com.