AIBU to feel that the ‘Labour against Private Schools’ campaign is a scapegoat for a lack of vision for educational reform?

[BusyMum1978]

2500 UK independent schools with 615K children attending which is 7% of the population of children in FT education up to the age of 16. A number of articles published this week have highlighted the campaign supported by Labour MP’s, who are calling for a number of measures impacting Independent Schools including their complete abolishment, and for these schools to become part of the state school system. A real hatred seems to be forming, and it feels to me like an easy smoke screen to put up rather than the Labour Party providing very specific policies to show how state funded education will be reformed.

I completely understand the feeling behind the imminent appointment of our 20th Etonian PM - there is urgent reform required in politics to have equal representation which I wholeheartedly agree with. I also understand the recently published stats showing accelerated social mobility for those attending top independent schools. I am not saying that there aren’t areas for improvement- but is the objective to bring more children up, or to bring the independently educated 7% down to make it ‘fair’?

My children both attend a prep school, and they are the first generation in both mine and my husband’s family to do so. We aren’t rich, neither of us have a degree, we own one property. We have -and continue to- work hard and made a choice to invest in our children’s education. We know we are privileged to be able to do so. To hear that MP’s want to wage a ‘class war’ with a family like mine feels inflammatory and yet more decisiveness in an already fractured country.

My children started their education in a state primary school but quite honestly it wasn’t good enough, and our heads were turned by what the private sector had to offer.

It equally broke my heart and inspired me to read The Times article on The Willow in Broadwater Farm school. Schools like this desperately need funding and further support, as do a range of children’s services which were cut during austerity. However will abolishing independent schools help a school like this? Parents who have money will still gravitate to the best areas / schools, and get tutors etc. There are a large number of selective state secondary schools that require heavy tutoring to access.

We need to nurture brilliant young minds in this country, to plug the UK skills gap, and compete in a global market. The independent sector has a valuable role to play.

Progress and globalisation is happening at such a rate that it’s becoming a bit uncomfortable. Many jobs our children will do haven’t even been invented yet.

The independent schools could work more closely with the state sector, but it concerns me that this campaign is chasing an ideal, and if successful would just shift the problem elsewhere.

The definition of charitable has always been intresting ( I wrote a section of a law book relatively recently on this after recent changes).

Traditionally charity included things like aid to the poor, education, religion. We can change the law to make it what we like and it is always controverial eg in the UK thankfully the cult of scientology has not been recognised as a religion and does nto have charitable status whereas in the US the state conceded the point - Miscavige virtually had a partyto celebtrate it - the battle is won etc

So I accept we need limits on who can claim charitable status. In fact if we lowered our income taxes to a flat tax /. NI of 33.3% or 20% I would favour abolishing all tax reliefs for all charities, all reliefs for charitable contributions, pension contributions and much else.

However removing "education" entirely from being charitable has a lot of effects in all kinds of ways. The law was changed relatively recently so that "pulbic benefit" has to be shown more which was an issue for opera houses for example.

It has not been an easy new test of public benefit which must help the poor in some way.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/315381/p_brief_public_benefit.pdf?source=post_page---------------------------

www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-benefit-the-public-benefit-requirement-pb1/public-benefit-the-public-benefit-requirement#part-5-benefiting-the-public-or-a-sufficient-section-of-the-public

While I can understand why some people want to abolish private schools, parents would still be able to buy education in all the different ways PP have said.

And I'd really hate for private SEN schools to get banned.

I'd much rather more tax money was spent on state schools and education was improved that way.