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.

If people can afford it, they pay extra to live in a 'good' state catchment area or go private. Although £80k sounds like a lot, it isn't actually that high especially where both parents are working.

The fact is that high earners are already paying huge amounts of tax. Why on earth should they then have to may extra to use the state system? Ridiculous.

I don't think there should be a limit at all. Very high earners should not be discouraged from being part of the wider community. A social mix means people of all income levels.

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?

So you think children from underpriveleged backgrounds are less deserving of places in outstanding state schools?

I think its outrageous that the head of an extremely exclusive private school should be suggesting this.

We would fall into his band of people who should pay. Our dc go to an oversubscribed school which is ranked outstanding. However, every child who lives within catchment and who attends a catchment primary gets a place at the secondary. The secondary school serves a number of villages, one of which has the cheapest housing for miles around. It is a very middle class area, but there is also a significant amount of social housing so it's not just the preserve of the middle class.

In addition, we don't have a choice about where our children go to school. in rural areas, with little public transport, children have to go to the local school whether or not it's poor or good. The second nearest secondary school to us is about 12 miles away with no bus.

Seddon's concept that middle class people buy up all the housing stock close to good schools is London-centric and doesn't apply to the majority of the UK. From what I understand, there is much more of an issue with schools in London, but this proposal is not the way to address it.

I don't think this is the correct approach but something must be done to address the middle class stranglehold on the best state schools.

When they attempted to move from catchments to lotteries everyone had a conniption about how "unfair" it all was.
So what do we do?

And what about the prep school hothousers who then dive into state grammars? If you can afford to pay for primary and opt out of state system then maybe you should have to contribute something if you go back into the state system at secondary level?

Some people need to wake up about the growing chasm between the haves and have-nots in this country and the lack of social mobility.
Too many people in this country think "sod it, we're alright jack" and just pull the ladder up.

Seddon's concept that middle class people buy up all the housing stock close to good schools is London-centric and doesn't apply to the majority of the UK

Simply not true.
Take a look at Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Norfolk, Suffolk, Yorkshire ....

I think it's a bad idea. Nevertheless it is annoying that schools vary so much in standard. And the best schools are quite often in the expensive areas so only better off parents can afford to send their children.

Chunderella - I live in rural East Anglia and the catchment problem is alive and well - more so actually because there simply isn't as much housing stock and affordable housing is almost non existent so the 4x4 hunter-welly brigade dominate areas and the best schools.
Same applied in Sussex and Devon where we used to live.

Rural poverty is a whole different thread but rural schools are failing at a frightening rate.

I don't understand why some posters think that kids from privileged backgrounds do not deserve places in outstanding state schools.

I don't understand it either.

It's not saying that children from underprivileged families don't deserve places at outstanding state schools at all. Just that they all deserve the same chance from the state sector.

That's why we have the pupil premium, with some schools being given a huge amount of extra money because of their intake. Parents at schools which get very little in the way of pupil premium have to make up the shortfall at their schools out of their own pockets - this is not expected of parents in deprived areas.

If one earns £80,000, one already pays £26,636 in income tax and NI.

I think schools are funded around £6k per child on average (secondary)- surely £26k covers a couple of child already

You'd struggle to put more than 2 through fee-paying schools on that salary.

Someone on £120K contributes more p.a. than a Primary Head Teacher's salary- they are already paying to use the system.

This country is going to have a serious situation soon, whereby those paying most in are receiving very little back out (removal of family allowance, paying for A&E, very little access to GPs, paying for state education ) and they're going to feel separate from the system, from society, and begin to question wtf they should contribute any further.

It will widen the gap between rich and poor further- it will be a social disaster, and the media seem to be fuelling it.

We are in a very similar situation Gravity. It pisses me right off on the grammar school threads when other posters suggest that I am somehow depriving the poor because I bothered to do a bit of preparation at home with my child for the 11+!

I think if parents on 200,000 were charged bb it would just mean faster transfer to indy sector. They really wouldn't hang around to argue up standards. Our experience was that the Head/LA were so determined to bring down a onmced renowed school, that we were whistlinmg into the wind. We left and the school has deteriorated every year since. It is so sad.

Actually. How about this?

I pay to privately educate my son AND the government give me a proportional tax rebate relating to the state education I am not paying for?

I'm not sure about a tax rebate relating to the cost of the state education you are saving the government, but I definitely think that school fees should allowed to be paid out of pre taxed income.

Grrrr this is making me mad.

a) I don't want my children to be privately educated to those saying why didn't we just send our kids privately rather than move near a good state - I believe very strongly in state schooling for various and we are entitled to utilise the state system!
b) 'Good state schools' and 'private' are not somehow just interchangeable!
b) £80+ salary in London with house prices etc is NOT RICH and we couldn't afford to send both children privately or pay school fees
c) We pay a lot of taxes
d) This truly would be the slippery slope - 'the rich' paying for schooling, health, other services...then what? 'The rich' fuck off out of the country taking all their taxes with them? Or worse still and more realistically the 'less rich' gradually have to start paying for services too

Of course the school system is deeply flawed and it's not fair...I don't know the answer but it's not this that's for damn sure.