to want to abolish private schools' charitable status?

[minifingers]

Which costs the tax payer 100 million squids a year.

Schools justify having charitable status by saying they offer financial help to 'disadvantaged' children.

The 'disadvantaged' children they refer to are actually, almost to a boy/girl, highly intelligent, academically successful children who have outstandingly supportive parents (otherwise they wouldn't be researching bursaries/applying for schools/preparing their children for exams). In other words, not at all disadvantaged. These are the children who generally succeed very highly in the state sector too.

I personally think that tax-payers money should go towards supporting those children who are failing in education, not to those children who are already succeeding. Surely it's more beneficial for the children who are currently failing most severely in the state sector to have tax payers money spent on them, as these are the children who the tax payer ends up supporting through benefits/the prison system.

In addition, 'skimming off' this top layer of very clever children and sending them to be educated separately from other ordinary kids impacts on the learning of all the other children in the state sector - any of us who have done a degree/been in education know what a difference it makes to be in a class where there are a lot of clever/motivated people, how much more enjoyable and productive learning is.

Just to draw a mumsnet analogy - imagine if all the funniest and most interesting posters here were offered their own site - 'mumsnet gold', where they could be funny and interesting all day long and those of us who are not as funny and clever would be excluded. Imagine how much of a loss that would be to everyone here? we could rename the new non-gold site 'netmums2'

So, AIBU?

Take the £100000000 currently given to private schools and give it to state schools with the largest number of underachieving students to spend on supporting their education instead?

Most threads don't stick rigidly to the original point. Most conversations develop and new themes get discussed. It's also how conversations work in RL and it beats 727 posts all saying the exact same thing.

The problem is though there are so many reasons suggested about why charitable status can't be removed that I can't really buy any of them, and over riding all of them is just the wrongness of describing an institution for educating those who can pay and want something 'better' as a 'charity'. It just sticks in the craw.
So it's: 1.private schools would close down if they didn't get these tax breaks, which would be a bad thing because a) only the very rich could then pay form them (so we are subsiding medium rich people to choose private education?) and b) the state system couldn't hold those children (possibly). So we are offering tax breaks to a few institutions to make sure the state doesn't have to educate c.7% of children, and as a by product, to give them some perceived advantages away from the rest.

1. Private schools are charities, because they also take in some children who are bright but poor, and this a Good Thing
2. Private schools are charities because they offer their pools and facilities, or contribute to community projects.

But I'd say to (3) - so do state schools, really quite a lot.
To 2, I don't think it's a good thing at all.
And to 1, it's not the tax payers job to prop up private schools, either for the benefit of medium rich parents or for that of anyone else, because I don't think any of the side issues claimed as advantages of having private schools compensate for what I would say is their invidious and divisive presence in the first place.

But it's not that they would close down if they didn't get the tax breaks (we could afford an extra £200 a year despite not being "rich" - yes, we do pay 1 x senior school fees out £35k joint annual income), it's that they would close down if they had the status removed because of the implications of having to SELL all their assets. Which would cost the state an extra £3bn per year.

TOSN

It's simple.

If a charity is stripped of charitable status, it must either transfer assets to another charity with similar aims, or sell up and donate proceeds to another charity. There is no provision in current law to change ownership to privatise the property and assets of a charity.

The law can always be changed, but I think such a change could make it horribly easy for asset strippers because for the first time ever businesses/individuals would stand a chance of acquisition.

And to 1, it's not the tax payers job to prop up private schools,

But it is the tax payers job to provide education for every child.
Are tax payers really propping up private schools though? If we offset tax breaks against the amount spent on bursaries and community projects would there be an amount left over which is being used to prop up the private schools?

The uncollected tax of £200 per pupil needs to be set against the cost to the state of educating a pupil (varies, at least £3k per year). So even without trying to price up the value of community activities and reduced fee places, there's a pretty big saving to the state.

I wouldn't offset bursaries, for a start! That's no benefit to anyone but the child getting it.

And why shouldn't it benefit the child who is getting it?
What is wrong with that?
Assuming that private schools are going to exist regardless of the fact that a more level playing field might be achieved if they didn't exist; Would you rather only children from wealthy families be at the private schools? Would you rather children have to leave if their families suffer some misfortune which earns fees are no longer affordable? Should they be uprooted at what might a difficult time for them (death of a parent etc) or should they be offered bursary to allow them to continue their education in a familiar environment?
What benefit is it to the individual child anyway if state schools could be providing them with an identical academic education? Surely it benefits more than the individual child by removing that child from the state school any releasing the public purse of £6k per annum funding (which I think is the average per child in state schools). Does it not benefit the public purse?

miss I'm not saying it shouldn't benefit the child who gets it; I'm saying that's not of benefit to anyone else, so shouldn't be offset.
I suppose it might benefit the public purse in a very small and unnoticeable way, but mainly it's something for one person, isn't it?

"Assuming that private schools are going to exist regardless of the fact that a more level playing field might be achieved if they didn't exist; Would you rather only children from wealthy families be at the private schools?"

I'd rather money coming from the public purse (which may fund many bursaries by way of tax relief/charitable status for private schools) was used to support children in the state sector - bright or not. I would feel the same about some children being helped to access private medical treatment through tax relief, when adequate treatment was already available through the NHS, and other equally needy children were denied this privilege.

Bright children are not more deserving of largesse than less intelligent children. In fact I would say they are less deserving as they are less likely to fail in the state sector than children who are decidedly average.