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.

But closing all private schools wouldn't necessarily force the 7% into state schools to ensure that children have similar experiences and make the world a nicer place. Some of the 7% might take up a place at a state school (if there is one available), but some might also go down the route of home education. I can say with some certainty that my child who is at an independent school would rather be home educated than return to his previous state school. I think it would be very damaging to his mental health for him to return to his previous school and all other schools within a five mile radius already have a huge waiting list.
There are other parents who for a variety of reasons would choose home education rather than opt for a state education. Not everyone who has chosen independent education for their children has done so for elitism or superior education reasons. I actually believe that most parents who choose independent education are well aware that state schools can offer academic success and that many children do very well in state schools, it's just that they have wanted something different for their children. Smaller classes, proximity to home, boarding options, a whole of school option (4-18), specialisms such as music schools or drama and dance schools.
I think if it was solely about academic learning differences then a lot of parents would save some of their money and get a tutor to top up whatever they feel is lacking in the state schools. Some of the 7% started out in state schools and have transferred and they won't want to transfer back. Of course lots also transfer from private to state and don't want to transfer back either because they are happier with the state school provision.

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!

Possibly not, but they would be home-schooled if the alternative were dire.

But nit the vast majority of DC do attend schools where DC of all backgrounds muck in nd it hasn't made the world a nicer place! Social mobility is at an all time low.

exex yes - and I am actually quite attracted to the idea of banding or lotteries in cities, because of the situation you describe, actually - of course the problem would be rural schools which made this impractical. I know my benevolent dictatorship will pose significant challenges in the fine-tuning!

Truffle - but the thing is, in most cases, the alternative isn't dire - yet some people still choose private for a whole host of reasons I'm sure. I struggle to imagine all those parents giving up what are presumably challenging, rewarding and lucrative careers to home school

Word but that doesn't make sense, because there's never been a time when that 7% (variable through era, obv) has not been segregated. I'm not saying all society's problems would be solved at a stroke - I'm just saying it would be a good thing!

I see Impatient and I cross-posted. My kids are privately educated and I'm very seriously considering home-schooling next year because I'm still not happy with the quality of their education, and we're at a very awkward point for changing. I'm giving notice on the first day of summer term, so we will officially be without a school for next year.

Sure, Original, but they could hire tutors.

I possibly have a skewed view on how many people would be willing to home-educate because I'm becoming increasingly evangelical on the subject. I can't figure out why we're spending 30K after-tax income on an education that I feel pretty strongly I could do better at home (for a year or two - not forever).

Well it might be 'nicer' in a vague fluffy way (nowt wrong with that) but we're discussing actual real improvements to state schools. And I trully can't see how the two would be connected. In truth if DS school were banned we'd probably do Tiffin or Colyton. His mates might too. Some wd head abroad (its a very mobile community). Home would home ed. Some might buy in good catchement. What I do know is that it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to schools in Doncaster or Hull or Blackpool.

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.

So the only way to make a bad school good is to fill it with a reasonable percentage of MC children whose parents will somehow magically 'agitate' and make a difference? Can you tell me how this is supposed to work please? Just what do you think MC parents can demand a state funded school to do, or not do, that WC parents cannot?

Let's face it the only reason the presence of MC children in a school will bring the results up will be the MC children themselves. It won't be because of any 'agitating' of the school itself by the parents. This is a silly myth that people like to labour under.

I love this idea that a school will remain bad or failing, or ineffective so long all the while it is given a wide berth by the middle classes, and yet we are told that the middle class kids only do better because their parents can afford to live near the good schools.

They can't both be true.

I struggle to imagine all those parents giving up what are presumably challenging, rewarding and lucrative careers to home school

That wouldn't be a problem for me as I don't work outside of the home. I only chose school over home education because of the peer socialisation aspect. I know that quite a few of the families at my sons independent school have one of the parents who either don't work or work very few hours outside of the home. Many are self employed and work from home and could easily fit their work around an education programme supported by a tutor.
It's also worth considering how many of the teachers at the current independent schools would become tutors for the children that they currently teach. My sons independent school has several teachers with children who attend the school, I can imagine that they would be quite happy to transfer to being self employed and running tutor groups for the newly created home education market.

You seem to have missed the "long enough" part. If you could somehow force children from private schools into state schools (which you can't), over the long run, of course they would be better funded. The (budgetary) decision maker's children would attend schools that rise and fall with the decision that they make!

Perhaps in my attempt to be polite and measured, I've come across as vague and fluffy .

It's really odd how this debate ranges from the incredibly sweeping ('why not make pretty children have plastic surgery to be more ugly and make it far, huh? huh? huh?) to the incredibly specific ('how will my son going a different school affect children in Hull?'). Like fighting lots of teeny tiny straw men and some great hulking lolloping straw men, but not any, er, real people.

It wasn't a question nit because we both know the answer.

Closing DS school won't make Jack Shit difference to the kids in places like Hull, Doncaster or Blackpool. How could it?

Those DC will end up abroad, home educated or in the very best state schools, mostly the selective ones, mostly in the SE.

Well yeah, of course we do. Just like we know the answer, what difference does it make to you if I open my window and chuck some litter out of it, or what difference does it make to anyone if I go on an EDL march, or what difference does it make if I don't, or do, recycle.... it's just not a helpful way to look at anything, IMO.

But there are so many things we could do that would make an appreciable difference to the lives of pupils in those areas.

Concentrating on stuff like closing public schools is a complete red herring. Whilst it might make people feel better to tub thunp, the energy is far better spent elsewhere.

I would happily home educate Ds if his private school were forcibly closed because a) I earn very little more than school fees and b) there is no provision for Hfa in our county.

So this

zirca- I am with you. I am amazed people would think communist principles would work given the history of it. The spectrum of politics is a horseshoe with communism and facism at the top.

For those who say that Communism doesn't work, you're forgetting for a moment that Capitalism doesn't work.

Also, there are enough models of capitalism to show that it REALLY doesn't work, whereas the communist models have had no such tweeking/improvements/developments.

But in any case, you can have a more fair capitalist society than the one we have, without it being 'communist'.

RaRa, the communist comments are due to one poster suggesting that the state should just take ask the buildings and facilities currently owned by private schools. Not buy them, just steal them basically as use them as state schools. Much apart from how ridiculous that suggestion is in itself, many if those buildings are very old with huge maintenance costs that the state just couldn't meet.

Private schools are not always better. Some are quite poor compared to excellent state schools. Private schools do offer exclusivity with no need for the children of the well off to mix with 'Oiks'. They also develop confidence, a sense of entitlement and provide useful networking. Sadly parents who can are prepared to pay for this as much as for the education provided.

The answer surely is to work towards making all state schools as good as the best, and to foster the same level of confidence in their pupils. It is the least all parents and children deserve.

Applefalling, I don't pay for higher results. My local state schools both primary and secondary are very high achieving. But, nor do I pay to avoid anyone else. I pay for all the extras that even the best state schools could never afford. I want my primary age children to have a drama school, swimming pool, amazing science facilities in proper labs, visiting history groups who bring amazing props, regular visiting authors and artists. I want them to have 3 hours PE a week which inc 1h swimming and 1h doing rugby or hockey on an appropriate surface.

The state simply cannot afford this and I'm very lucky that I can; so I do!

It doesn't need to be communism for having more quality and equality between state schools. As for private, there are examples in other countries where schools can be privately managed, but state funded, therefore affordable.

Private schools do offer exclusivity with no need for the children of the well off to mix with 'Oiks'. They also develop confidence, a sense of entitlement and provide useful networking. Sadly parents who can are prepared to pay for this as much as for the education provided

Too much of an over-generalistion

They also develop confidence, a sense of entitlement and provide useful networking.

Why is this a bad thing? You don't have to go to private school to network. My cousin when to a state school and got her first work placement working on props for Dr Who because her parents knew someone who was involved. Should she not have had that chance because others on her course didn't have the same connections?