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'?

Yabu and ha ha ha.

This only works if private schools can only charge the same as state schools would charge, if they charged. In that scenario (which is what the govt has tried, and failed to create in the NHS) the money stays in the system and all education is subsidised by the state, the only improvement being that the private sector is free to bid to make efficiency savings and cream off the spare and the idea then being that they can expand provision on the back of those savings.

In your scenario, wealthy parents are able to top up the state sum so can carve out private school access for themselves, exactly as they can now and the only winners are the private schools who take the state subsidy directly to their own bank accounts without expanding provision or improving standards. So the benefit of the huge extra burden on the public purse will be absolutely zero - and to top it all, private school prices will be even more inflated than they are now.

Exactly GrahamTribe. My brothers and I have never done a sodding SATs exam in our lives (although we have many other quals up to Masters level).

Astr0naut - if you only had the choice to send your DCs to the worst, underachieving schools in the country would you feel the same?

Its not about thinking you are too good for state school, I know many state school teachers that send their children to private schools and many they would love to if they could afford it.

I don't necessarily think that they should subsidise it but I do believe there should be tax relief on it, at the end of the day if those children were all in state schools how would the government afford that? Probably by reducing the amount per child they pay and therefore reducing the quality of the schools even further!

Graham - My DSs school is less than £2k per term at pre-prep, the highest level is £2800 at senior school!

"But imagine what society would be like without a state education system"

You don't need to imagine. Just ask the wartime generation, for state schools did not exist until after WW2. There had however been free education for many decades before that, and legislation requiring children to be educated.

Oh, go away lou2321! Senior school - over 13.5K here. :(

Per year, that should be, not per term!

Agree lou2321. We are in exactly that position. It's all very well if you get offered a reasonable state school, it doesn't have to be perfect, just ok would be nice. We were offered one of the worst underachieving schools in the area. I've never been a private school type of person, it went against my values. But the options were either to send my dd here, or work my butt off and send Dd to the local private school (£5500) per year. It's all very well when people get offered a semi decent state school, but it seems pretty unequal and unfair that the only options to some people is a sink school or pay for it. I'm not one of the privileged wealthy, but if a semi decent state school can't be provided then I think I should have some of my tax money back to pay for something else instead.

State schools only get worse when better-off parents elect to send their kids private.

But Noqontrol- you ARE one of the privileged wealthy if you can afford even the £5500 (out of taxed income) to send your child to private school. What about the parents for whom private school will NEVER be an option?

Am I one of the privileged few? I'll have to work 2 jobs for it and no spare cash for anything else for the next six years.

noblegiraffe- I agree.

I am with the posters who would ban all private schools and have a full state system of education, with fully comprehensive education for secondary age children (no grammars creaming off the talent). State education would improve.

I don't agree with the poster who suggests private schools shouldn't be abolished because they do education well. It's easy to do it well when you charge £15k per pupil, academically select on entry, and have 20 or fewer children in a class.

Noqontrol- but there are plenty of parents for whom £5500 out of taxed income per year will never be possible, no matter how many hours they work.

I suppose by that you are right that I'm lucky that I have the option to work two jobs for it. And no not everyone can do that. But there are many that don't need to because their local schools are ok.

State schools are there- you can opt out but why we,as tax payers, should pay for it I have no idea!

I' m certainly not paying for it!

But I'm paying for it too exoticfruit. Not just you. Lots of tax for a shite local school.

I find it hard to believe that people would rather see the back of private schools, and I find it especially hard to believe that people think state schools would improve without privates.

Don't you realise that the state simply wouldn't be able to cope? There are already too few school places, never mind decent school places, for all the children that need them. Where are you expecting all these extra children to go if the state can't even manage to build enough new schools to accommodate children now?

It seems like bitter jealousy to see posters talk about how private schools are the reason that state schools don't always achieve. I just can't see the logic in that at all. There are plenty of excellent state schools, although not enough, why can't lower achieving schools look at what they do to improve themselves? Why can't parents at poorly achieving schools make a difference themselves? Or at least manage their children's behaviour so that teachers don't have to and can concentrate on teaching instead.

I think it's a terrible idea. The payment wouldn't cover all the fees, there would still be a shortfall that parents would need to pick up. It would encourage middle class families to send their children to private school and leave less well off children in the state sector, thereby creating an even bigger divide then there is now.

Completely agree outraged

"why can't lower achieving schools look at what they do to improve themselves?"

Well, I teach in an high achieving state school. One of the main reasons that we do so well is that we have a very middle class intake with interested parents who are prepared to fork out for tutors if Little Johnny looks like he might miss his grade C at GCSE.

So, lower achieving schools could look at my school and see that to improve they need to change their intake - it needs to have far more middle class kids with interested parents. Oh, but those parents have sent their kid private because the state school wasn't good enough. Vicious circle.

Would create an even more divisive system than we have already, as it would impoverish the state sector and precipitate an exodus of the middle-classes into private schooling.

However, do think the government could give me the cost of dd's state schooling for us to spend on private tutoring and trips to museums, as we are home schooling and fucking skint with trying to pay for outings and help with maths.

What if all the money people pay towards private education were put into one bit state pot, along with state funding, and shared out? How good would the schools be then?

They'd still be poor schools, money isn't the answer as the labour government proved.

It could work if:

1. There was a cap on what independent schools accepting the vouchers were allowed to charge parents (as there is with nursery vouchers now), and they were prohibited from differentiating between voucher users and full fee payers for the purposes of admissions.
2. Something like 1 in 2 schools was independent so there was a critical mass.
3. Nobody was excluded from seeking and taking up a place on grounds of parental income or status.

BTW we did have state education before 1944, but it was elementary education covering the age groups 5-14. It was the 1944 Education Act that introduced free secondary education for all, whereas previously parents had to pay fees for grammar or independent schools, unless their child had won one of the mere 2 or 3 scholarships available annually in each area. The 1944 Act also introduced free university education for all who could win a place on accredited degree courses.

RIP free higher education, 1944-1998.

There you go then!

It's not a vicious circle at all, it's a case of parents not doing enough for their own children, and neither the state nor private schools can be held responsible for that.