Abolishing private schools - how would it work in practice?

[Dongdingdong]

Labour has voted to abolish private schools:

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-public-private-school-abolish-eton-vote-conference-corbyn-education-policy-a9115766.html

Whether you agree with this or not, I don’t understand how the logistics would work. Would private schools suddenly cease to exist from say, summer 2023, with all pupils forced to find a place at the local state school for the autumn term onwards? What would happen to the buildings and facilities - would they remain as state schools or be sold off to developers for example?

But they won’t barbarian. The vast majority of the countries children go to very average comprehensives in underfunded counties or cities that aren’t London.

If private is abolished the ex pupils will be amongst the best equipped for expensive catchments, state grammars, church schools etc. It will be the average mc mumsnetter’s dc that will be elbowed out to the average school.

Unless I’ve missed it there’s no proposal to genuinely make education equal for all, just banning one form of selection.

The issue is who is going to pay for all this?

Basically anyone who has more than two pennies to rub together is going to get soaked.

I'm s labour voter and I'm currently hoping to send my son to a private school on a bursary.

I would love it if they got rid of private schools. It would force improvement across the board and I wouldn't have to do this.

The school I'm currently planning on sending him to is highly unlikely to simply cease to exist. It will become free.

Think about that- decent education for free.

You know, what we're supposed to get? Some of you have no ambition!

They can abolish them all they want but here is what will happen:
Property prices around schools that have good reputations (for there will be no more Ofsted ratings, the Stasi are already thinking ahead) will go up by at least 15-20%.
Wealthy parents will hire tutors, find sports grounds etc
Wealthier parents will hire personal tutors à la old style governesses to educate their children
They will send them to board in Switzerland or the US
And/or they will simply leave the UK and take the considerable sums of tax they pay with them.
And then once the UK has turned into Venezuela, the astronomically wealthy will return to the UK, which is now for sale at rock bottom prices and buy it all back, re-instate the private schools and make us wish for the equality gap we have now.

My kids went to private school. We are in a mediocre catchment, and it was cheaper to send our kids private than to move to a better catchment. Unless inequality between state schools improves (ballot? That didn't go down well) there still would not be equality of opportunity.

Oh and only 7% of pupils are privately educated- it's hardly going to cripple the system.

OK, theyvegotme if decent education for free was so easy to achieve then why isn't it working now?
What's stopping your local comprehensive to be just as good as the private school you hope to send your child to?

I would love it if they got rid of private schools. It would force improvement across the board and I wouldn't have to do this.
How?

The school I'm currently planning on sending him to is highly unlikely to simply cease to exist. It will become free.
Think about that- decent education for free.

Thats not what will happen, the schools won't stay the same as they are now

The system is already crippled, theyvegotme or haven’t you been paying attention.

The state sector DOESN’T HAVE ENOUGH TEACHERS TO TEACH THE KIDS IT ALREADY SERVES.

Private school teachers aren’t suddenly going to become state school teachers, they’ll have a choice to jump, as some of them will, and now we’ve got more kids, and not enough teachers to teach them either.

What are we looking at? Massive class sizes? A hundred kids in a lecture theatre having their maths lesson? I’ve already seen it happen in the state sector.

Look at this graph and add another 600,000 kids into the mix.

I am not as vehemently anti public schools as some but tbh, its pretty hard to find a reason to defend them really. The best I can come up with is that it saves the public purse some for the wealthy to pay for their own kids' education. But the inequality it creates and the mess those leaders who have been through it have caused rather speaks against it.

The only vaguely workable thing I can think would be to convert them and some other schools to some kind of demi-private charitable status school where 50% of the kids subsidise less well-off kids to attend. But that would be too elitist for Labout I'm sure.

Obviously, I am sure there are many reasons that's not workable at all.

I don't work in education so this is an outsiders view but from what I can tell, state education has been starved of investment for years. There has even been asset stripping in the academy system.

The attitude to education also stinks in certain communities (including my own).

Rich and/or educated parents tend to value education. They support the school and their children. They put pressure on the schools to succeed. They often have influence in important places. They have skills that they can donate to the school.

All of which can make a huge difference.

Said parents are also more likely to vote (and in many cases lobby for) better education funding.

The school I'm currently planning on sending him to is highly unlikely to simply cease to exist. It will become free.
Think about that- decent education for free.

Everything has to be paid for. Don't be naive.

@theyvegotme

It would actually cost 3.6 million each year to add these students to state education.

Yes, and if we don't pay for a decent education in the early part of a persons life, we pay a helluva lot more to mop up the mess in later years.

Shite education is the ultimate false economy.

Lifelong Labour voter here.

This policy makes me so mad, in principle I agree but Christ, they’ve just alienated a heck of a lot of people. I shall be voting Lib Dem next election. Momentum and JC should concentrate on progressive politics not trying drag us back to the 1970s. Idiots.

Do fix the shite education. Don’t think getting rid of good schools helps anyone.

These schools aren’t going to survive having their charitable status taken away.

This will ultimately weaken, not strengthen, the education system.

Didn’t she send her own so to a private school?

Only to City of London Boys school, one of the top independent schools in the country.

theyvegot you do realise that bursaries will go with the charity status? Possibly the richer, well established schools will keep current recipients, but they certainly won’t be handing them out to new pupils. In the completely unrealistic result of every private becoming a state school, your ds is no more likely to get in than anyone else.

And even if the government genuinely prioritised education tomorrow, with half decent funding, the change will take years to have full effect and be too late for your ds. So be careful what you wish for.

Have Labour understood the effects of austerity at all? My impression is they haven't been very effective in opposition, so why should I trust them in power?

@BelleSausage

The current education budget is around £42 billion.

Private schools currently get tax rebates of around £500 million.

Perspective!

Of course bursaries will go, be no longer needed.

Ideally, I'd like my local comp to stop being shite so he can go with his friends.

Said parents are also more likely to vote (and in many cases lobby for) better education funding.

Or buy expensive houses near the best state schools.

Do you think that parents who would have sent their kid to Eton will now be sending him to Grange Hill?

The more I read the more fucking bonkers I think they are. I have, in the past, voted labour. However, there has been a running inability to balance the books going all the way back to the last Labour government.

I teach. Schools are ALREADY crippled. "Only 7%" will finish education off. "Democratically re-distributed" is a terrifying phrase and seemingly not one just reserved for Private School buildings. Plans seem to extend, as others have pointed out, to private healthcare, buy to let properties. Will people eventually be prevented from having any business themselves? People will be forced out of homes because of their gardens being too big thus attracting large tax bills or because their landlords would rather serve them notice than sell the property to them for peanuts. The rules around inheritance and the death/lifetime tax are disgusting, given how much property prices have increased over the decades. You can't just steal family assets that have been bought with hard earned income that's already been taxed. But that has been proposed in Land for the Many.

It's chilling.

Even the idea to scrap prescription charges, whilst a noble cause, is like living in cloud cuckoo land. How can the NHS provide any more for free? It's on its knees as it is. I watched a number of party members being interviewed today about that policy and not one could say how it would be funded.

Through pure theft maybe? Mass seizing of property and assets?