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'?

"Presumably private sector teachers get their degrees, etc. at the same universities as the state teachers, so they're unlikely to be any better."

The private sector can afford to offer higher salaries to attract the better qualified teachers. For example, one school I know of only employs those with Firsts.

"It's not a vicious circle at all, it's a case of parents not doing enough for their own children"

And the reason that there's an overwhelmingly strong correlation between the income level and education of the parents, and the educational attainment of the child is because rich, educated people just love their children more, and do more for them.

Whereas working class people who have had a poor education themselves simply don't care!

Seriously - it makes me PUKE talking about the whole private school/state school issue simply in terms of 'parental choice'. Try explaining to a group of CHILDREN that it's right and fair that some of them will have a vastly more teacher time at school, and enhanced life choices - not because of anything they have or haven't done, but because of their parents' bank balance. Try telling them that CHOICE is more important when it comes to education than FAIRNESS.

I tell my own children that they'll have to work very hard, because the likelihood is that children who are less intelligent but more privileged they they are may well be more likely to win when it comes to competing for jobs and university places.

Im not sure if having a first class degree guarentees that you are a better teacher

Graham - I did a PGCE. The academic ones with poor teaching skills did drift towards private schools because they couldn't cut it in the state sector.

The vast majority of those who see teaching as a vocation and care more about the welfare and life chances of children than anything else go into the state sector.

"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."

The powers that be would buy their way into good catchment areas, like many other people can do when they can afford it. (Incidentally, for us private school worked out cheaper than moving to a better catchment area....)

Only employing teachers with firsts is daft.

I've watched lessons taught by PhDs that would make you want to weep.

Now, I'm sure they wouldn't make the grade either, but really, there are more important criteria to be boasting about. Only employing people with firsts is focusing on the wrong thing...

If there was spaces in private school s funded dont you think there would be more children attending , atm there is bursaries for private schools and i think with state funding class sizes would increase then parents would complain that they were not getting value for money IMO education should not be elitist there should be more time and energy going into state education , just my opinion of course as a parent of children who went/go to a state school so have never seen it on the other side ,

Fair point that private schools select through fees anyway, but still I don't see the problem with that happening.

We will all give our children the best we can, or what we think is important, and it's wrong to say that people should be stopped from doing that for the sake of other children. There will always be children that have one advantage or the other over other children, even without private schools.

I realise it's my job to provide what I can for my children, I don't expect the state to do it for me, but I don't expect them to limit my valid choices either. Especially when it could well be to the detriment of my children. My children do not exist to make the lives of other children better.

I just did a quick google of private special needs schools - learning disabilities.

The one I looked at first tells me that all their children go to university.

I am guessing that their definition of learning disability is different from mine

I am poorly educated i was a sick child and missed alot of school so my education was limited , That does not mean i dont care about my children's education you can be poor and give a fuck (sorry language ) my eldest child left school with good grades I always made sure they stuck at school for a poster to say a lower income familiy or a poorer educated parent doesnt care about their child is insulting

I am also willing to bet that they are pretty fecking selective about the children they are willing to take.

I mean they will only take the clever ones with learning disability. All those academically gifted learning disabled children.

FFS

I think we don't make choices in a moral vacuum, particularly this choice, and we make the society in which our children will live. I don't think educating children in a social ghetto makes a good society for my children, or your's. So that's why I don't think people should make the choice. Now of course you disagree with me, but I have already said that as far as I am concerned, people should be free to make choices that I think are wrong. I make different choices for the people I can make choices for.

MrsJay its not insulting - its a load of fecking bollocks and not worth your consideration.

Outraged, I think fundamentally you and I disagree what a good, decent society is all about. For me, it's not all about me and my children.

And I think the state should limit choices in education where one person's choice (i.e. a parent to go private) actively disadvantages the children in the state sector. Because that;s why private schools are so intolerable to me, they don't just represent a leg up on the children who'd parents can't afford to buy the advantage, but they disadvantage the children 'left' in the state sector.

Shagamund your post is the best post i have seen on private schools in a long time.

Shagmund, you talk as if the alternative to private school is always going to be awful. It isn't, there are plenty of us that are more than happy to have the state alternative, and I for one don't feel disadvantaged because there are children other than mine that go to supposedly better schools.

It's not unfair for children to be educated differently if they still have the same basic opportunities.

"We will all give our children the best we can, or what we think is important, and it's wrong to say that people should be stopped from doing that for the sake of other children"

So unfairness in relation to education is OK, because it benefits SOME people (the richest and most powerful) even though for society as a whole it's not a good thing?

Because it is unfair that the children who leave school with the best qualifications, go to the best universities and get the best jobs are no more intelligent or hard working than the brightest and most hard working children in the state sector, they just have more teacher time bought for them by their rich parents.

Or is it ok that we don't have a true meritocracy in the UK, when it comes to education?

Mrsjay, I don't think anyone has said that poorer educated or lower income families don't care about their children's education. I hope you aren't misunderstanding anything I have said.

Coconutty- who are the people who sound bitter? I don't see people who are bitter- just people who are ideologically opposed to the unfairness private education creates and perpetuates.

I have nothing to be bitter about. I have sufficient means for my choice of state education in the local school to be a actual choice.

Fay, I agree that a decent society isnt all about me or my children. My children go to state school and I can honestly say that with the schools I have to choose from, I wouldn't go private even if I could afford it. I don't think that other children will have such a massive advantage over mine that I have anything to get angry about when others choose private schools.

The problem is only a problem because of the few schools that are in special measures or significantly under achieve. Abolishing private schools would not make those schools better.

Outraged you might not expect it, but this thread is about the state part-paying private school fees for already privileged children.

"some people on this thread sound so bitter"

Yes. I'm bitter. I'm bitter that my children can't compete in life on an equal playing field.

I think that's a reasonable thing to be bitter about.

"other factors interfere with their teaching"

Behaviour management is a teaching skill, and many teachers in the private sector never really have to develop this aspect of their practice.

The best teachers are those who manage to deliver good lessons in challenging circumstances.

Teaching a group of 15 well-motivated, articulate and well behaved children is a piece of piss, in my opinion. You chuck them a morsel and they simply run with it and turn it into something wonderful.

Teaching disaffected children and managing to make something stick is something altogether different. I used to work up a muck sweat with my bottom set year 9s, in a rough state school. Hard, hard, hard work

Shagmund, I take on board what you say and can't argue with authority. I'm not involved in teaching in any way. FWIW I agree with Outraged, as I've said many times on MN, my DC aren't there to improve the lives of others.

WRT to the argument that it's not fair, neither is it fair to explain to a DC that John's mummy has a car but you don't or that Peter's parents can afford to take him to Disneyland but you can't. As they grow up our DC may also have to accept that the boss has a Merc but they can't afford one, that's just life I'm afraid. What's really not fair is to limit someone else's chances of an education of the parent's choice because your children can't have it. (imvho).