High earners should be charged for state schools!

[RawCoconutMacaroon]

BBC report this morning carries the suggestion from Dr Anthony Seldon, head of the private Wellington College, that parents with a family income of £80k should pay for state school places.

WTAF? Kind of ignoring the fact that it is ONLY people on fairly high incomes who actually pay enough tax to cover the cost of their child/children's state school place (roughly £4500 per year per child). Yes of course tax is collected according to an ability to pay and then distributed so all benefit from "free" education, which is right and proper...

BUT he thinks people who are already paying a lot in tax should effectively be penalised and charged again for their child's place at state school! Although maybe he's coming from the POV that if high income parents have to pay for state school, they will be more likely to pay out for their child to go to his private school.

Ooh a whole thread in AIBU where everyone agrees.

Silly nonsense. But what is relevant is the fact that my DC's independents cost £18,000 per annum and £15,500 per annum respectively (non boarding). It is significantly more than £4,500 per pupil in the state sector. Probably I think one can do a good job for £4,500 and the reason we moved dd from an outstanding comp which was hugely oversubscribed (although this is changing we note) was because the policy around inclusion and the fact that teachers were spending huge rafts of time on crowd control was detrimental to the majority. In every class there were five or six trouble makers and there were no sanctions except for the sanction of management by excuses. Those students who simply would not behave need access to specialist units for the good of the majority and I for one would be happy to pay more tax for that.

terrible idea
IMO this would be the start of total privatisation, already started really
Good state schools would become private with those able to pay and those not able would get the dregs with no-one interested in improving them

Stupid idea.

Policies that further alienate better off people from the state (and thus make being in receipt of anything from the state a form of 'scrounging') are dangerous for everyone.

It is not a good thing to make it impossible for people to get a state education based on the taxes they pay. Those people will then see free education as a 'benefit' and a proportion of them will begrudge it to those who they see as 'not deserving' of it. Education is enough of a moralised political football without turning it into another means tested benefit. The fuss that gets made about free prescriptions etc will pale into insignificance next to free school education on benefit bashing threads - and the vast majority of the country are in receipt of that particular 'benefit'.

NearTheWindmill - I think I agree that exclusion of DC who don't make the grade or don't meet behavioural standards would be beneficial to the majority in state education.

But the exclusion units such a policy implies are politically unpalatable.

It would also end up with the fee paying children getting favouritism when it comes to parts in plays and being chosen for special activities, as the school would want to keep those parents happy because they need their money.

Those parents would understandably expect value for their money and would be on the teachers cases all the time. All the understanding that parents currently have about the teacher only having one pair of hands to deal with thirty children would go out the window.

I know if I was having to pay extra for a service I have already paid for, then I'd expect a higher quality of service, and minor issues at school that I might let go would be things I'd complain about. Only fair if you're paying over the odds.

This is stupid. It pre-supposes that middle class families with high incomes believe that private education is key.

We are a middle class family with a high income and we believe that a good education is key.

I do not (actually did not, as my DC are through the school system now) want a two-tier system to exist at all. I don't believe you should be able to pay for a 'better' education (although I would dispute also that private = better, in many cases).

If the issue is people trying to use their money to get their children into better schools, then shouldn't we be looking at funding/training/resources to ensure that the poorer schools get better?

Woo Woo
If parents want to pay extra for their rent or mortgage in a good catchment area, or to pay for tutoring then that's up to them. They are just doing the best they can for their children with the resources they have available to them, and their children have as much right to a place at an outstanding school as children whose parents are on a low income.

I agree with you in theory, but in reality in many places it just means only the better off can access good schools, and in some areas they in turn are now apparently threatened with being pushed out by those leaving the private system through financial down turn, and are pushing out the lot beneath them etc.

I don't know what the answer is, but there must be a way where interested in education families can all access decent or good state schools regardless of income?
A selective system for shrunken through buy in catchments based on commitment, that will give x places to those who can't afford to get in but would love to and would benefit?

My comment was not directed towards those who couldn't make the grade Bonsoir it was directed to those students who continue misbehave and disrupt and prevent the majority from reaching their potential whatever that might be.

Enian - we live near a good state school, house prices are ridiculous and we already pay a massive amount in Council Tax as a result.

What a ridiculous notion.

Then you will definitely see the have's and have not's and the differences between them. Private schools will be totally exclusive, there would be no bursaries. If I have to pay for my child's education you can be sure I am not going to pay for them to go to school with a class of 30 others, some of whom have no discipline or SEN issues (this is not a dig, just reality) which would impact my child's learning, especially when there is a private school with 15 in a class, no SEN issues and lovely well disciplined middle class children ;-) I know where my kids would go...

All I see is a bigger divide. Tthe same as doing away with Private education - it will just re-instate the divide of the really rich (aristocracy type) and the rest of us (plebs). It will NEVER mean equality of education.

I don't understand why people insist on using children's education as a social experiment.

I could equally say that as our DC went to indy schools we should have had a £4,500 tax rebate

Crazy idea. Yet another disincentive for families to be financially independent.
Work hard, take on more responsibility and gain promotions? Why bother? You may as well keep your hours low, not take on a challenging job and avoid going over a threshold which is going to take yet another wodge of your money off you.

This guy pops up regularly in the media and although he can seem to talk sense occasionally, this is a ridiculous idea

I think your argument is flawed due to catchment babybarrister. Ours went to a similar cofe primary a hop and a skip into zone 2. Primary was fine and is an entitlement for all children. The problem is that secondaries are bigger and now there is no selection at all, especially in inner London where there is little in the middle of the social divide a situation has arisen where a dysfunctional and disruptive few are allowed to destroy the education of the majority.

Unfortunately, London needs: teachers, policemen, civil servants, nurses but all these people who care about education are being forced out if they can't pay for education because what is on offer is just not good enough.

My ex went to Wellington, he left in 2005 so a while ago now, but it was £20k a year when he was there.

A large proportion of his year used class A drugs, in and outside of school. James Haskell was expelled for secretly filming a friend and his girlfriend having sex and then showing the tape around school, but was allowed back to complete his A levels. Wonder how much that cost?

My ex left with a B, D and E in A levels. Worth the money?

DH earns about that and there is no way we could afford private school for two DCs without me having to find a job that would cover the fees. Also I want my family to be part of the local community. Our local state primary school is the heart of our community.

Oh goody I can pay more for my Hobson's choice of one utterly crap school.

Why does the head of a private school think he knows what's best for the state sector?

Can you imagine the independent schools taking advice from a state school head about what they should be doing?

I don't understand why some posters think that kids from privileged backgrounds do not deserve places in outstanding state schools. Surely their parents support those schools through taxes, why should not they benefit from it?

But wealthy parents are paying anyway. 35-40% of the students at the secondary (outstandin cofe comp) that dd attended for two years were not part of our local community nor any community I would ever want her to be part of. I just donm't think Baby barristers argument extrapolates beyond primary level and education in London cannot be compared to elsewhere because the population is poles apart and so far from the norm in other parts of the country.

Apols fior typos - on phone.

Lookingfor my dC went indy - I wouldn't hjave dreamt of sending them to Wellington - they needed somewhere a little more academically rigorous. Your ex, if I may say, may have done quite well taking into account that the brightest are already creamed off into much better schools.