To think private schools should be banned?

[BethanyBoobs]

Why should someone have a better education just because their parents have money? Why should someone have a better chance of getting into university because their parents paid for their education? It makes me feel uncomfortable that people can buy their kids an upper hand when it comes to education.

I feel the same way about private health care too.

IMO private schools should be banned. Everyone should have the same chances when it comes to their education.

Offer me what I want from a state school and I'll take it. Improving results don't help as my local state school is very high achieving. I'm not interested in straight level 5s at Y6 and A*s at Alevel. Offer me what I really want, what I currently pay for, i.e all the amazing facilities and extra curricular stuff and constant visiting artists and authors etc at primary level and I'll happily switch.

But just 'improve' by offering me better sats or Alevels and I'm not interested.

Minifingers
Why can't the state lease the buildings and take over funding of these schools rather than pay to build new schools? The tax payer had already provided most of the training for staff in these schools after all...

Sure, the state can assume responsibility for funding these buildings and teachers - but how? If the state currently has the funds to do that, then why is there a shortage of spaces? Are you suggesting that there's a finite number of buildings & teachers and that private schools have stripped the state sector bare?

The state funds teacher training, sure. It would be sensible to have a mandatory minimum number of years that teachers have to teach in the state sector.

In what way does it fund teacher training though? Most teachers still pay tuition fees and fund their way through university. I received no more funding than DH did and he's a lawyer.

itsbetterthanabox, what is your personally experience of a private school? I would ask the same question to Odaat but I think you've given up on this thread.

I gather what Minifingers means is that the university fees they pay are not the total cost of their education, NancyJones?

By this measure all professions are subsidized by the state, though.

Another thing worth keeping in mind, is if the powerful ,whatever that might mean, were forced to use state schools and could use their power to change them...many might not like what they get!

The introduction of selection, single sex education would be bound to follow.
As would all manner of things that MNers love to hate.

Be careful what you wish for itsbetterthanabox !

When will people realise that failing schools do not create themselves? Failing schools are created by failing parents.

Equality of education is a good thing to fight for, but all children in this country already have access to a decent education. They might nit get outstanding facilities and extra curricular activities, but those things are not essential to academic success so they are irrelevant. Good parenting matters so much more than anything the state could ever hope to provide, and until all children have that, the rest really doesn't matter that much.

woowoo I think it's slightly more complkex than that.

I volunteered in one school with poor standards and the causes were myriad. Yes, the parenst weren't supportive (that's why I volunteered - they bloody wouldn't), but there was also an issue with staff. And the facilities were crap!!!

I'm also a governor at another school with problems. It has fabulous facilities and very well motivated staff (mostly). Unfortunately it is in an area ravaged by disadvanatge and also racial tensions.

Many of the parents do their best, but are clueless as to how to make a difference to their DC's lives. It is a hot mess.

TBH neither school nor any of the pupils in them, will be helped by closing Eton!

I don't think that banning private schools would cause any more of a level playing firld.

WHat you would get is the parents who currently send private would move into the catchments for excellent state schools, meaning there would STILL be poor and failing schools. Which to my mind is even more insidious because the so called level, free for all education isn't really as level as all that.

I agree it's more complex that that, but it just seems to me to be pointless to argue so strongly for equality of education at the expense of families who are quite happy to pay privately when it's not going to solve the problems with state education anyway.

And it seems especially horrible to want to remove opportunity for some children who are only using the private sector because of other people's bad parenting in the first place.

betterthanabox.

I am sorry but you are wrong

a. parents will happily send their children overseas to board if it means a better chance in life. The number Asians in our private boarding schools shows that. No question.. this is fact. and the super wealthy could afford it.

b. Well you see when rich parents support their schools they do not add money into the school or state coffers. They support the pta etc at which a school fete could raise £30k.. This is true of another local prep. At our prep our fete raises around £2.5k
that money would be used that school. Nobody else would get it. therfore the rich state school would have loads more cash to invest.

Doing away with the middle is not going to change the rich and powerful and it certainly will do nothing towards equality. Although it is funny that people think my local prep has anyone in it that is either rich or powerful ..

Based in the above facts how do you think doing away with private schools will achieve anything?

It would not result in an equal society. All it will do is prevent social mobility.

The problem is that there is no possibility of a critical mass of middle-class/elite children going into a bad comps and sticking around long enough for the parents to agitate, make a difference.

Are teachers the only ones who have a subsidised education by the state but are not allowed to work privately and make their own choices in life? Is that what it means to became a teacher? I mean bankers, lawyers, doctors etc..... Well surely that would be true for everyone and we should do away completely with private enterprise then. We may work for the state. hmmm interesting. ...

I really think that who trains them argument is so full of holes I don't even understand why people bring it up.

AfricanExport I tend to agree with you here, but I believe that doctors in the UK have to work for the NHS (I may be wrong?) so there is precedence. This certainly isn't the craziest idea I've seen on this thread.

I should perhaps say, doctors trained in the UK?

Truffle

But again.. doctors and teachers ... what about everyone else? What about the bankers, lawyers, engineers etc.

We are taking about creating equality by having different rules for different people. How does that even make sense?

ps.. The same is true of doctors South Africa.. I'm not sure how long they have to do it for.

Doctors and teachers are supposed to be provided by the state. As long as medicine and education are socialized, the state has to take a position in the cultivation of HCPs/teachers.

Life is never going to be an equal playing field. Why should have have someone dictate to me how I spend my money? I could spend it on expensive cars and holidays, but I choose to spend it on my children's education because the state provision where we live is dismal.

It's all very well to say that private education should be banned. Fine, make state education all the same standard, remove disruptive and violent children from class so my children can learn in peace and safety. Then I'll consider going the state route. Until then, I'll continue to use my money to do the best for my children and why the hell not!

Well truffle, if they were expecting me to work solely for the state, why not subsidise my course or offer me a bursary to complete it? As I said, I paid the same as everyone else inc my lawyer DH.

Sure, that makes sense - just like a normal employer subsidizing a student.

Though ironically, I have only ever worked in state schools so it doesn't really apply to me but still.

Wow, came late to this one!

I never entirely buy the idea that private school parents would, in this scenario, send their children abroad: sure, some might, but that is a big decision and a big lifestyle change, very different even from full boarding in this country, in almost every case. I struggle to believe that the three private schools in this city, all of which take some boarders, are full of children who'd be shipped abroad rather than just go to a normal school if they had to!

I don't think anyone is suggesting 'the powerful' (?) should enter the state system and then be utterly kow-towed to: I imagine the argument is more that it'd be a good thing if more articulate (even entitled!), vociferous and bolshy parents were on PTAs, rather than actually storming the state comprehensives demanding they chuck out the thick kids and being paid obeisance on that!

Can't really see how private schools are anything but a bad thing for all but the few who go to them (and not necessarily even for them), and to me it seems obviously more sensible to worry more about the 93% that the 7%. In my utopia, children will be educated together regardless of their intelligence or their parents' bank balance or their religion or their gender... precisely because it's an unfair world and some of them might have gestated in Red Bull or never get fed fruit or read to or whatever. Just that one thing, just all being under the same roof having a similar experience, realising that another 9 year old with more or less money isn't a different breed, would, I think, make the world a bit nicer a place.

TheOriginal - the thing is, unless you start putting children on buses across cities every morning to get a broad social mix at every single state school, you are still going to get rich children going to school with rich children and poor children going to school with poor children, just because most schools serve their local areas and rich people tend to live in areas full of other rich people etc.

There is a comprehensive near me that gets excellent results, better than some of the private schools in this city. It is situated in a very middle-class, owner-occupied area and is so popular that the effective catchment area is about 500m around the school. The social mix is therefore very similar to the private schools round here.

Hmm, petition the government to get rid of religious schools and single sex schools and I may be persuaded to at least have a look.
Oh and don't dare dictate to me what I can it cannot feed my children or when I can take them out for the day to do something that I feel is equally as worthy as a day in the classroom.

Communism doesn't work. It's been tried, and caused MORE corruption and power imbalance, along with a great loss of personal freedom (to think, to make choices, to buy certain things ('luxury' food like out of season fruit, clothes, books) than Capitalism.

I have a friend who grew up in a communist country - we listen to her tales of her childhood, and it's like talking about another world. One in which every normal person makes do with 'just enough' and luxuries of any kind (think pretty curtains, nice colours of clothes, a pretty hair tie, a new football...) are just not imagined, let alone accessible. I remember her saying that such things were not in the shops, and that she didn't know lots of types of food existed until she came to the UK. It is a life which is more austere, and more confined in every way, than that of being on benefits in the UK (and I have friends on benefits also, so am aware of the reality of that life). Of course, those in power had the most incredibly luxurious lives...

So, given that Communism doesn't work, let everyone have their choice, and spend their money however they like!