To wonder how one would go about abolishing private schools?

[Chuffin]

If anyone is following the @abolisheton campaign, they state their aim is to integrate private schools into the public sector and hope this to be included in Labours next manifesto.

My children are about to start independent school, having had a terrible time for a whole host of reasons in their state primary.

Aside from the moral argument for or against private schools, I am very interested in whether it would be legally possible to abolish private schools and how this would happen? Would this even be feasible realistically?

It's jealousy pure and simple

I’m afraid this is all a bit unrealistic.

Rich people could still send children overseas to boarding schools, hire private tutors or buy the houses next to good state schools. Educated parents can help their children in ways that uneducated parents cannot. The EU prevents VAT on education, so Brexit would have to happen. And quotas are just ludicrous, you end up hiring completely unsuitable people just to tick a box.

My grandad came from nowt to a very successful career because of a grammar school education and national service (accepted into officer training). Guess which two things no Labour Government would ever reintroduce.

All that would happen would be what happens now, but to a greater degree. The families who could afford private school but which are now state would buy up property around the best schools, pushing the prices up in that area, so all that would happen is that the money would be transferred into the property market. The 'outstanding' schools would all have children of the wealthy in them. They would still have no interest in making the terrible schools better, because their child would be in the good school in the good area with children of other wealthy parents. The only difference would be that not only were they getting the education for free that they would otherwise be paying for, but they would then get all their investment back and more by selling their house to other sharp elbowed parents who want to get their kid into the nice school in the nice area with the nice families.

Where are they going to put all the children with sen who are in independent special schools including residential schools ? They are there usually because no maintained school can provide what they need.

Great. Will autistic ds2 have to go back to his state secondary and be bullied to death then?

Labour forced state comprehensives onto the population back in the 70s. I had to go to two of these fine establishments. Fucking race to the bottom it was as well. It denied me an education (bullying) and damn near ruined my life (bullying).

Bullying is not restricted to comprehensive schools.

Grammar schools are not populated by poor children whose parents don't care about education. What rubbish. If their parents didn't care they wouldn't bother sending them there. As it is the poor kids have to compete against the heavily tutored MC kids for places.

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/oct/15/very-small-percentage-of-grammar-school-pupils-from-poorer-families-new-statistics-show

Corbyn lives in a 1970's Terrace. I hope Labour continue to have this as part of their manifesto because it will be yet another nail in their coffin.

Imposing a quota on the civil service re percentage of private school pupils would be retrograde. Getting through the fast stream assessment process is tough. You would be removing the principle of meritocracy if you imposed quotas. You want the best people to get through regardless of which school their parents sent them to. It’s not that much of a stretch to realise that parents who have done well and can afford fees may be bright themselves and therefore produce clever kids. If you put quotas on careers, parents would find ways to game it.

Bullying is not restricted to comprehensive schools.

Certainly not, as Prince Charles and Jacob Rees Mogg would probably attest. But state school bullying operates in a particularly insidious way: you don't want to be the one putting their hand up all the time in class. No wonder state-schooled pupils cannot express themselves as articulately as theit privately-educated peers.

All that would happen would be what happens now, but to a greater degree. The families who could afford private school but which are now state would buy up property around the best schools, pushing the prices up in that area, so all that would happen is that the money would be transferred into the property market.

If private education were "nudged", taxed and regulated away yet nothing else were changed, this is indeed what would happen. But with the wonders of the Internet, there is no reason why education should take place only in school buildings. I do agree that addressing income inequality is fundamental to improving education, though. I can't remember what Illich had to say on the matter - he was rather anti-welfare - but I think a universal basic income is absolutely necessary as a minimum. Even without a school system - especially without a school system - everybody needs a place to live and learn, food on the table, an internet connection etc.

An awful lot of people are employed by private schools. Groundsmen, maintenance caterers, cleaners, admin. Will they all lose their jobs? They won’t be needed in the same numbers in state schools.

When Grammars were abolished in most areas, setting and streaming in comps separated the middle and working classes on the whole. The idea that suddenly everyone would be equal if private schools were abolished is pathetic when you live and work within a capitalist framework.

Let’s face it, they simply want to spite the wealthy, and this is a lazy way of doing so. By the problem is, they are hurting the rest of society in the process as you can’t scapegoat private schools for all the ills of capitalism and expect the elite not to find a way around it, unless you abolish capitalism too...

Possibly like when the nhs was formed and the private hospitals were incorporated into the national system?

Or they could ban/cap fees like they do for universities?

Imposing a quota on the civil service re percentage of private school pupils would be retrograde. Getting through the fast stream assessment process is tough. You would be removing the principle of meritocracy if you imposed quotas.

No, just moving the future meritocrats out of private schooling, most likely. If they are so chock-full of merit they will all end up in the fast stream anyway.

What do they actually mean by incorporating private schools into the state system?

Does it mean making them state schools? Or keeping them as they are but controlling them? So who attends them?

An awful lot of people are employed by private schools. Groundsmen, maintenance caterers, cleaners, admin. Will they all lose their jobs?

Nobody (hopefully) is suggesting that the private schools be razed to the ground. When they no longer serve their current purpose they may find another, as with other fine buildings which are not currently being put to any socially beneficial use.

Imagine both Eton College and Windsor Castle as social housing.

“An awful lot of people are employed by private schools.”

Not usually an argument that has much influence over Conservative party policies to be honest.....

When Grammars were abolished in most areas, setting and streaming in comps separated the middle and working classes on the whole. The idea that suddenly everyone would be equal if private schools were abolished is pathetic when you live and work within a capitalist framework.

Totally. It was a pretty handy way of continuing to ration education: in our comp, only the top maths set had taught lessons, by the headmaster,* no less! The rest of us had to teach ourselves from booklets, while a "teacher" invigilated.

*The headmaster's own son was privately educated.

If you built more state schools and made them all excellent then the private school system would slowly and quietly collapse. But that would require billions of pounds of investment in our future, so I doubt it'll happen.

As PP noted, independent schools employ a LOT of people in the way that the state sector never could. Every independent prep/primary school has specific sports teachers, art and music teachers, drama staff, Science technicians grounds people etc etc. I’ve worked in state primary and independent prep and there is now way that the state sector would provide that many jobs.

Also - how can the govt forcibly buy schools at the market price??. For the schools in London alone that would billions.

This is the situation in state secondary education. We’ve got a crisis where we have nowhere near enough teachers (and dropping) and an increasing number of pupils. If they did close private schools, where would they propose getting the teachers to teach them? I don’t think they can count on all the private school teachers making the move to state.

The proposal just isn’t practical, even if it were possible.

If private education were "nudged", taxed and regulated away yet nothing else were changed, this is indeed what would happen. But with the wonders of the Internet, there is no reason why education should take place only in school buildings. I do agree that addressing income inequality is fundamental to improving education, though. I can't remember what Illich had to say on the matter - he was rather anti-welfare - but I think a universal basic income is absolutely necessary as a minimum. Even without a school system - especially without a school system - everybody needs a place to live and learn, food on the table, an internet connection etc.

I agree with you about a universal basic income, but I don't see how that would solve any problem in relation to income inequality. Some people would always be more willing and able to earn more than the basic level of income and some people would be happy doing the basics for other benefits. Also, I teach in part via online learning. Its a bloody nightmare getting adults to submit tasks set remotely and to do the work set for them, never mind children. Remote learning sounds great, but again, the children with parents who had the time, inclination and resources to either make their children do the work set or to get a tutor in to help them will be the ones doing it. You need a phenomenal level of motivation nd commitment to learn remotely.

Tell you what. You don’t judge comprehensive schools by the standards of 30 years ago and I won’t judge private schools by the standards of Tom Brown’s Schooldays!

A private school near me went into administration.

The local authority schooling system buckled under the pressure of trying to find spaces for the children, and that was only the 50% of children who didn’t go to alternative private schooling.

1 in 4 children in Edinburgh in independent schools. The LA would go bankrupt trying to educate all those children.

There may well be good reasons to get rid of these schools, that debate needs to be had, but the cost of replacing them with state schools would be massive.

I do feel the problem with the left as it is, the ones with voices, at the top do seem to have come from privilege themselves just not Eton like tories

They have no idea what real everyday life is like or can be like in households that struggle with minimum money, and the range of issues that impress more when there is no interest in education or outward thinking. (alcoholism, drugs, blended families, violence).

Ie life revolving in smaller way.

I also hazard a guess many more stringent posters on here always pushing for the downward dog, also come from money.

Like corbyn. They have no idea or clue.