Rise of private schools marks return to 19th century waste

When I started school in the 1970s, local Australian schools were free, compulsory and secular. We all went to the local public school, or almost all of us. The Australia we knew was proud of being egalitarian, and relatively free of religious conflict. The main issue was privilege: some wealthy private schools, more or less religious, could claim to provide an education superior both to the public system and to parochial Catholic schools.