to think the state should pay part of our private school fees?

[wolvesarejustoldendaydogs]

Don't jump down my throat! It's just a thought.

State schools are overcrowded and there aren't enough good ones. Private schools are expensive.

What if every child had a right to have their state school 'payment' (whatever it costs per child per year') paid to a private school? Obviously parents would have to top-up (probably a considerable amount).

That would create a bit of a market, with more choice, making private schools more affordable and state ones less overcrowded.

Or is it a stupid idea for a reason I will think of soon after pressing 'POST'?

Happy no I don't think you should send your child to the local comp!!!! Please read my posts

Outraged - why should highly educated individuals only come from schools where you need to pay? Can you not see how divisive that is?

But it's the states responsibility to do something

I think we can probably all agree on that! The state does have to do something to lessen the divide between the haves and the have nots, but abolition of private schools is not the answer. Improving parenting standards at the failing schools is the answer, but it requires a much more complicated solution than just banning something.

What I was getting at in my post is that private education is actually a small part of the problem. The core issues for me are those I listed and they are much much bigger than the existance of private education.

I have family in the S Wales valleys. Abolishing private education will make zero difference to them because there aren't many privately educated kids in the valleys anyway so there won't be an influx of motivated parents. Its a deprived area where it is not unknown to have 3 generations who have never worked in a family. The educational issues in that area are not affected by the existence of private education because, for all intents and purposes, private education does not exist in that area. Where are all these interested and motivated parents going to come from? My not being able to send my children to private schools will not help the Valleys at all.

If anyone wants to help the Valleys then I would recommend this charity
valleyskids.org/

Home ed is a good point though. You need to be in a position to afford to do that as you need to be available. Hence the loss of a full time income. Are those parents too privileged and should they be forced to send their kids to the local comp as well then? After all it's an education choice that won't allegedly benefit the majority.

I don't dislike the fact that their parents have more money - that's another issue.
I don't see why I should care about those 7% markedly more than the 7%s parents care about the 93%, though - and I don't see that they would suffer anyway.
I don't agree that this would 'deprive our society of highly educated individuals', either. Why would it?
I don't think children should 'understand and be respectful towards' poorer children - that makes them sound like a different and segregated group, which I suppose at the moment they are. My point is that I'd like them not to be.

Why is home education another discussion?

It is a perfectly valid educational choice made by far more parents in the UK than is given credit.
The vast majority are highly involved and motivated. Their DC do very well statistically.

Either you insist all DC attend their local school, or you don't.

Portofino, you have the question the wrong way round.

Instead of saying "schools aren't as good as they should be because people are opting out" you need to be asking why people are opting out. Why is it that so many people move house to get in to a grammar school? Why is it that so many parents sacrifice so much for so long to afford private school fees?

You, like so many others, seem far more interested in the success of 'the system' instead of recognising that the system should be serving the people. If people are opting out, they're doing it for a good reason. Stop treating them like aberrant machines and start treating them like human beings.

That's the trouble with socialists, the individual doesn't matter to you.

Highly educated individuals don't only come from private schools, there are plenty of high achievers from state schools. Thats why I don't see why we should abolish private schools, because there's just no need. What needs to happen is that failing schools are abolished, although I don't know how you achieve that when the blame lies with feckless parents.

Well, I disagree, Wordfactory, and I don't see where this binary comes from. We're talking about what the hypothetical effects might be of there not being any private schools.

For me it's a different issue because I think the rationale for doing it is rather different - I do think, actually, that most children who are HE would be better off in schools, and it's not a choice I would ever make and it's not the framework within which I'm bringing up my children.

It is different because it's not to do with wealth and privilege (although I suppose it's likely you'll need not to be too poor to spare a wage earner). It's different because the cabinet isn't full of home educated ministers.

"If ALL children had to go to their local state school,"
How are you going to enforce this? People who pay are often pretty powerful articulate individuals do you think they are just going to roll over and say "of course I happy to send my DC's to the local comp" I think not. They're going to protest and carry on sending them, they're going to break the law, how are you going to police this, arrest the parents the teachers send in security guards to stop parents dropping their children off at school or bring in the army maybe and shoot a few parents to make a exhibition of them and dissuade others from turning up at the school gate. You could compulsorily purchase the buildings, erect barbed wire fences how about a few tanks. I thought we were living in the UK not North Korea!
Get a life concentrate on improving state ed and leave those of us alone who want to and are able to pay!

HT, I don't want to go off onthe Africa tangent either, but I think we can understand what happens there. But thankfully we don't have to live the way many people there do, so why would we choose to. It's the same thing. Why would we choose to put our advantaged children into a less advantaged situation instead of raising the disadvantaged children into an advantaged situation?

I think it is to do with wealth though. It costs me a lot less to send my children to private school then it would to home ed. I considered home ed, but couldn't actually afford to do it.

happy if they banned private ed, you could home educate. You could even club together with some other parents. Maybe pay some excellent teachers. Maybe buy a school.

Oh hnag on...

Happy, I'm not going to enforce it! Obviously! We're having a discussion about the hypothetical effects of a hypothetical situation - I am not about to come around and drag anyone's child through barbed wire and make them go to state school, honestly! I think this is getting a bit out of hand.

TOSN, there will always be different groups of society, you can't change that and I can't really see why you would want to. Diversity is a good thing, as long as everyone can understand or at least respect everyone elses different positions.

No need to ban private ed. Just ban such schools from choosing those whom they educate.

How is this a problem?

Hairytoe - I see what you are saying, and you are right that we might end up with some educational utopia if educational choice were abolished. However I fear not. Yes, you probably would have more engagement from authority but you would have no better solutions to the child who cannot be controlled or those who are ignored because, in any system, resources have to be prioritised.

I am not sure that I want to live in that kind of socialist state where my hard work and success cannot be used to benefit my children and to alleviate the inadequacies that any large system will inevitably have because it cannot focus on the needs of the individual.

I think my biggest concern is that we currently have a system where it is accepted that the movers and shakers of society come from a very small group of schools. A group so small that I suspect that very few mumsnetters children at them. ( I say children- obviously I mean boys!). So the very presence of public schools is damaging to the concept of an equal society. I don't think it actually matters whether little Henry down the road goes to St Custards and little Kain goes to Bash Street Infants- in terms of influence neither of them are the top few so it's unlikely that eithe Henry or Kain will go to Oxbridge and get to be Prime Minister.

But it is really disingenuous to think that Henry won't realise that his parents think Bash St isn't good enough for him, or for Kain to realise the same thing. And however many anthropological field trips Henry makes to Cubs and so on, they are already divided into "us and them". Parents can swear black and blue that this isn't happening, but children are much cannier than we think they are.

That would be fine, outraged, if the positions were equal and equally weighted - like an English teacher can respect a Maths teacher, for example. But its disingenuous to say it's all about mutual respect, when one group is asked to respect the fact that another group has bought its way out of what's considered good enough for them, and, to be honest, very often looks down on them (like Africa, but a bit nearer?). And the other group is somehow supposed to have a non-weighted 'respect' for the group they've paid not to be educated alongside.

"I don't dislike the fact that their parents have more money - that's another issue.'
TOSN thank you at last someone has been honest enough state what this is all about. Its all about the fact that most of you don't like it that people who educate their children at independent schools especially the big names have more money a lot more money than you do. Just to make your eyes bulge and push you blood pressure up a few more points those sending two children to the big names boarding schools are cheerfully forking out £66 000+ pa yes they've got loads of money. All the big society stuff, all for the good of the community is a smoke screen for the real issue. Its was the same with the anti hunting brigade is all about money and class not foxes!

GooseyLoosey you can benefit your child by bringing in the private tutors, if the system lets you down. Seriously.

Forcing all children to go to their local school wouldnt solve anything. People would carry on doing what they are already doing and either buy their way into good catchments or be stuck with what they have. Money would still have a very big influence.

So the only way to achieve what some posters want would be to have a lottery system, so that there really was a true mix in every school. But the you woudo have siblings at different schools, children having to travel further away than they shudo have to or their parents could afford them to, it woudo be equally as divisive for communities whose children would all be going off in different directions. You would have to subsidise or pay the cost of all this extra transport through taxation, when the money would be better spent improving parenting at the failing schools. Traffic would be worse and emissions would be worse.

Does that really sound like a good solution? Really?

echt
"No need to ban private ed. Just ban such schools from choosing those whom they educate."
Maybe I'm being thick here but by charging it becomes self selecting!

Well, not quite Happy - I did say it wasn't about that, and what I meant was that distribution of wealth is another issue.

I agree with you that most people educating in this way have a lot of money - but disagree that the theory with segregated education is driven by resentment of this.

Besides which, what about the argument that lots and lots of parents at private school are as poor as church mice and drive beat-up Volvos, etc?

I genuinely think it's distasteful to hunt foxes - whether that's done by someone skint or loaded. I genuinely think you shouldn't segregate children by wealth - but have no problem with children having more money than my own.

That's really not what it's all about for me, so please don't misinterpret what I said as being such.