To be annoyed that private schools have charity funding.

[Olympiathequeen]

They are not charities, they are businesses.

They do little or nothing for the local community.

They benefit by about £750 mil. They part fund bursaries for around half that amount.

Leaving them with a tidy little £300+ million profit at the expense of the taxpayers.

That money is desperately needed for public schools.

WTAF is the government doing?

But most charities are not really open to anyone head. There is usually some criteria that needs to be met to decide who can benefit from a charity. I know my ds who has SN has had help from a few charities but children without SN can't access the facilities and benefit from those charities.

Exactly! Private schools aren't open to anyone! Usually due to cost.
But the argument is that we all can't access it so it can't be a charity.
It's a defined group of people that it gives benefit to. Ditto Uni's.

Interesting that some private care homes are similar.

Universality of provision seems to be the nub of the argument re private schools.

Nonsense. The question is whether they are a net public good, not whether they are accessible by all. Plenty of perfectly straightforward charities only supply services to part of the population.

It's a nice try at a straw man, though.

"But the argument is that we all can't access it so it can't be a charity"

No it isn't. Loads of charities are not accessible to all of us.

So should we define anything that isn't universally accessible not a charity then head? Should the group which takes out my ds on a few trips during the summer not be able to be a charity because children who don't have disabilities can't access it?
Should the make a wish foundation lose its charitable status because only children with life limiting conditions can have their wishes granted by them?
Every charity has its criteria for being able to access its services but despite them not being open to everyone most people would still accept that they are charities and should remain so.

Like I said earlier, there are some private schools which actually so quite a lot to deserve their charitable status - my DS school being one of them IMO. But some private schools really aren't doing enough and should be forced to do more. I would actually like to see schools forced to do more to earn their charitable status rather than see them all lose their charitable status. A school which gives a couple of bursaries each year and lends
Out its pool once a week to a state school clearly isn't doing enough. But a school like my sons which gives 20% of students bursaries (half of those 100% bursaries) and travel grants and FSM where needed and sends a teacher to work in a developing country for free, works with local SN schools and provides tuition and guidance to state school sixth form students as well as properly sharing its facilities is IMO perhaps doing enough to deserve its charitable status.

Providing education is a net public good in itself.
Providing choice is a net public good.

Providing education is a net public good in itself.

Again, I'm afraid that's nonsensical. If the manner of educational provision leads to impacts that harm more children than are helped, by definition it cannot be a net public good. And it isn't rational to argue that all possible forms of educational provision are inherently beneficial to society as a wghole.

The debate is about whether private schools do more good than harm. In my view, the evidence indicates the opposite.

Can you elaborate on why you think choice is automatically a net public good? How far does that extend?

Can you elaborate on why you think choice is automatically a net public good?
That question wasn't asked of me, but here's an answer:

'Competition from private schools improves achievement among both state and privately-educated students and decreases a country's overall spending on education, the study of 220,000 teenagers in 29 countries found.'

From that research, it looks as if the provision of private education IS a net public good.

Lume, what research is that? It sounds like an interesting read.

The evidence I've seen that is specific to England seems to indicate the opposite in terms of access to higher ed and other measures, including social mobility.

I don't think it deals with why choice as a concept is automatically a public good, but it sounds like an interesting contribution to the private/state school debate.

I linked to it several times upthread, because I thought it was very relevant.

Here's the link again

It interested me as well, but I haven't chased down anything more recent. The essential argument seems to be that if state schools face competition from the private sector, they have to up their game, so all results improve, the improving the quality of the nation's workforce.

Sorry, Lume. It's a long thread and I don't have instant recall of everything everyone has posted, or the ability to discern whether the reference in their most recent post is from something pages earlier.

Lume, having read the actual study (rather than the Guardian article) focuses on Catholic education, on the presumption that where Catholicism is not the established state religion there is a much higher proportion of private schools due to Catholic doctrine requiring Catholic schooling. If anything, it shows that having Catholic schools in the private sector (where they are usually heavily subsidised by the church) is good for overall educational attainment.

It also focuses entirely on PISA scores and therefore doesn't consider issues like access to work and higher education, future earnings, or other factors linked to future social mobility.

I'm not sure it automatically holds true for the English experience, except as an argument for moving faith schools into the private sector. It's an interesting study nonetheless.

I'm wondering how many fee paying parents would be supportive of the removal of charitable status from their children's schools. I imagine there are some parents who would be delighted with it if it meant that the school stopped giving bursaries and stopped helping state sixth form students with their uni applications (they might perceive that this would lessen the competition for the most sought after uni places thus increasing their child's chance of successfully getting a place). I don't think it would lead to an increase of fees at all schools but rather a reduction in bursaries and charitable / community work.

I think choice is good. Remember state car makers? Choice does drive competition - and innovation.

Not everyone does have choice - I accept that, but it still doesn't mean it's a bad thing. My friend uses a different state school which I would have liked but inability to transport there in effect removed the choice. Whereas she drives her there each morning.

I don't particularly have a vested interest in any particular private school - mine are currently in state.

If there was no private education my children would be further disadvantaged by larger classes etc. I think you are right six bursaries / community involvement would decrease and I imagine a lot of people would be happy. After all it's not their core activity.

Hive, that it can be beneficial in consumer sectors doesn't mean it holds as an unquestionable benefit in all sectors, particularly where there is state provision or where true choice - such as between two things for which you may equivalent amounts of money. There are big questions about whether competition is effective for the NHS and the broader health sector, for example.

If anything, competition will make average private schools strive to be better otherwise they will lose pupils to an equally good school that doesn't cost parents money. That incentive does not work the other way, particularly in such a heavily regulated sector where the regulatory compliance burden does not fall equally.

Choice is nice. That doesn't mean it's a public good for which tax breaks should be given, particularly if choice is only available to a privileged few.

Six, it's an interesting point. I think the benefits to the few who are helped by private schools are so outweighed by the harm to overall social mobility and associated impacts that I'd rather have the forfeited tax spent on something else that is productive for society.

"I don't think it would lead to an increase of fees at all schools but rather a reduction in bursaries and charitable / community work."

With one or two honorable exceptions, I think that the contribution private schools make in terms of bursaries and community work would ardor be a loss to society.

But is it just a few benefitting in all cases though jassy?
200 bursaries, 250 state school sixth form pupils getting help, 400 children at the local state primary sharing the facilities, probably several hundred children in Uganda receiving an education and dozens of SN children getting some benefit is a bit more than tokenistic or just a few (that being just what my sons school is doing). This is why I think charitable status should be awarded on a school by school basis and dependent on how much they actually do for people not paying fees.

IT does take time for the effects of competition to filter through, but I do believe it does work both ways.

If there is an effective state school which produces similar results in the area then parents tend to drift away from paying. We saw that happen with the growth of selective schools in the fifties.

It was only when I signalled that my child would be going elsewhere as the state school did not want to offer her the subjects she wanted to do that it suddenly became a possibility, in order to retain her.

Six- your school really is the exception that proves the rule

Although I do slightly resent the suggestion that state schools do no charitable or community work.....

In addition in the NHS we do look at our competitors. We look at what they are offering and try and do it better.

Our state school doesn't do much in the way of community work.

A private school near to me offers bursaries to some top performing students in a state school in a very poor area.
This benefits the private school as they gain some clever-despite-the-odds students who will get good exam results.
This will be of benefit to those students, assuming they find they fit in ok and don't feel second class, they will get a good education and a step up when they write their school on their CV.

What does it do for the struggling state school though? It just creams off their top candidates and leaves the rest behind.