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'?

My post was in response to nobelgirrafe.

If there were no private schools then all teachers would be employed by the state schools, and therefore all the best teachers would be teaching in the state system (I think most of the best teachers are probably already in state schools, but it would be better if they all were.)

So we'll let you have some dosh for your kids to be taught privately if all your teachers come from the bottom 5% of available teachers. When they improve, they will be moved into the state sector and your school will employ more of the dross. You do us a favour, we'll do you one.

Outraged, it's not just that. The nice parents who are interested in their child's education improve the school for everyone, by being on the PTA, being governors etc. Their kids will also make classes easier to teach by watering down the effect of the disaffected.

Cream off all the nice kids who can make the grade to get into private school and you are effectively left with sink schools. This has been the situation in Bristol for example, with a lot of very poorly performing state schools and a huge number of private schools.

YABU, IMHO.

I know what you mean giraffe, but why should the parents who are interested in their children's education have options taken away from them because of parents who aren't interested? That seems very unfair.

Why should children have to be used to 'water down' the problems caused by the disaffected?

The UK should do what Finland does: you can set up a private school if you like, and charge fees, but you can't select your intake.
This may be go some way to explaining why most children are in state schools in Finland. Oh, and they do rather well.

By implication this may also put paid to the assertion that it's all about the quality of teaching in the respective schools. Presumably private sector teachers get their degrees, etc. at the same universities as the state teachers, so they're unlikely to be any better. It's the intake that matters. Remove the perceived advantage and suddenly private education is unattractive.

I think people should be allowed to spend their money on education if they like. I think it's the wrong thing to do, morally, but so are lots of other freely available choices.

I am strongly against the state contributing towards private education at all.

My school is not overcrowded...

And as someone who teaches in the kind of state school that should apparently be looking at a school like noblegiraffe's, well, I agree with noblegiraffe...

Why is it morally wrong to spend money on education?

if you are prosperous enough to afford private fees,then you're lucky to have additional choice.

however,its outrageous to expect state to pay private fees

just out of interest did you held this view before you had to send child to private school?pre children did you genuinely think yes govt should pay private school fees

Outraged, by "parents who are interested in their children's education having options taken away from them"- I assume you mean parents who can pay for their children's education. I can assure there are PLENTY of parents interested in their children's education in the state sector too, even if they can't manage to rustle up thousands for their children's education.

The reason private schools are so "good" is because: a) they charge more per pupil than in the state sector, b) they academically select (on the whole) and c) they have much smaller classes. They are not inherently better at teaching children and I'm sure many of them wouldn't have a clue about teaching less able pupils. I'd argue the "best" schools in this country are the genuine high performing comprehensives. It's those the state should be trying to emulate further (and not via the shoddy academy programme).

"Cream off all the nice kids who can make the grade to get into private school and you are effectively left with sink schools."

Make the grade - or more likely, have parents with enough money. Many young people without wealthy parents are just as "nice" and would be just as capable of "making the grade" given the same opportunities. Money and intelligence and niceness don't necessarily go together.

Outraged, I'd argue it's morally wrong to spend on private education because essentially you are buying them an advantage- you are giving them a leg up in something as fundamental as education. This goes along way to perpetuating the class divide in this country and widens the gap further between the "haves" and the "have nots".

Outraged "but why should the parents who are interested in their children's education have options taken away from them because of parents who aren't interested?"

Look at it another way. The less well-off parents who are interested in their children's education aren't having the option of a good state school taken from them by parents who aren't interested in their kids' education, but by the better-off parents who are interested in their children's education who are using their wealth to send their kids elsewhere. If they sent their kids to the local comp, the less well-off parents would be more likely to be happy with it.

Outraged Look at my post about Finland at 19.23. and what can happen if the option, or should I say incentive, to educate privately is "removed".

GrahamTribe - £5,000 or £6,000 a year (not a term) is the going rate for private primary around here (small Lancashire town)

But I think town I live in has the lowest house prices in the UK to match.

I realise there are plenty of state educated children with involved and interested parents, I'm one of them! And I work as an LSA in a high achieving primary school.

Most private primary/junior schools don't select, and even many of the secondaries don't have that hard a test. Anyway, I understand that they are not neccesarily better school with better teachers, and I understand why they get better results. But I don't see why it's wrong to want that for your child if you can provide it. We don't have children to help other children, we have children because we want to love them and give them the best we can.

Wrt 'buying an advantage', you will never stop that even if private schools were abolished. There will always be parents with connections, money for extra curricular activities, money for travel etc etc. Its not wrong to want to give your child the best you can because other children might not get the same.

I did read your post Echt, but I don't really know enough about the Finnish system to comment. How do they select, or manage admissions? Do they have catchment areas like we do, so that parents can buy their way away from disaffected parents and children the way parents can here, or what?

Outraged - a private school selects instantly when it starts charging fees. That will whittle away anyone parents who can't afford it (higher paying jobs = more likely higher educated parents), the ones who don't understand the application process, the ones who are not bothered about which school their child goes to. A private school isn't selective just because it has an entrance exam!

"But I don't see why it's wrong to want that for your child if you can provide it."

That's your job as a parent. The state, however, has a different agenda to you, and you shouldn't expect it to bankroll yours.

YABU. And I shouldn't think many ordinary people would be very happy knowing that their hard earned taxes are going towards funding private education while their children are in a state system which needs all the help it can get.

As a PP said, like private healthcare, if you wish to jump the queue, you pay a premium, quite rightly.

Sending your DCs private is a CHOICE and a luxury, it does not even come close to all the other things the country is struggling to pay for.

Totally agree with Frayrazzled about the morals of private education.

I am with noblegiraffe on this one. I believe there should be no private schools. If the powers that be had to send their dcs to the local school (ie their nearest one/ in their constituency), there would be much more focus on ensuring that those schools were good.

And no way on earth should tax payers subsidise other's elitist education.

Please excuse my errant apostrophe - I got an A in English

I think this could only be justified by 'we are saving the state money by sending our children to private schools' if the private schools were staffed entirely by privately edcuated teachers (that would include private universities or if the teachers were educated abroad at the expense of another country's tax payers)

Private schools do not save me any money. The teachers are trained using my taxes and then go and work in the private market.
Ditto nurses and Drs working in private health care.

So the private sector costs me money and get no benefit from it.

Remind me why that warrants parents going private being rewarded?

If you want to go private I dont care. Not unless you start telling me you are doing me a favour. Then it pisses me off.