To think private schooling should be abolished

[year5teacher]

Just to preface, I’m not criticising individual parents. You have to do what you consider best for your child - for example if the choice was a private school with excellent dyslexia support and a state school that was notoriously bad, for example, you must make the correct judgement for your child.

Just to get that out the way so the thread isn’t flooded with “well I sent DC to private school because...”. I’m not talking about individuals, I’m talking about the system as a whole.

AIBU to believe it’s morally wrong for us as a society to allow children of higher earners to access a generally better level of education, which in turn can affect their trajectories for the rest of their lives?

@GreyBow

Same with healthcare? Everyone stuck with the NHS?

Doh!! How derogatory, you'd be bloody glad to have the NHS should you be unfortunate enough to get Covid.

Or indeed should your private operation go wrong at which point your Intensive Care Bed would be ONLY provided on the NHS since private hospitals don't have intensive care expertise.

@CatherinedeBourgh

Surely if state schools were sufficiently good you wouldn’t need to abolish private schools as no one would pay to send their dc to a school that is no better than the one they can access for free?

Where do you stop? Would it also be illegal to send your dc to a private school abroad, or to home ed them? Is freedom not a value any more?

Think about it though - the private school I saw the other week (mentioned in in a previous comment, went to a town which had a crazy expensive boarding school) had its own first class cricket pitch, it’s own rugby pitch, it’s own CHAPEL ffs, state school can never compete with that. Ever.

The inequality looking at that, which can only be bought for 11k a term, and the fact that at my placement school there wasn’t enough money for post-it’s is just a joke. It shouldn’t happen.

What about special schools? Many of them are private, should they be abolished too? Remembering of course in order to get a funded place at one of these schools that state will already have decided it cannot teach them.

@year5teacher I went to private school, my parents couldn’t afford it by themselves my grandparents helped them out. but it was best for my education. I had learning difficulties in a school where the teacher hated me because I don’t learn quick enough. Life is hard enough and I think kids need all the help they can get in those early years and honestly if the parents can pay for the best then fantastic.

Labour will never get in. With that logic they're fucked on so many levels.

No, you’re right. labour will never get in because people don’t see themselves as part of a society, they see themselves as individuals and how they can get the best deal for themselves. Which is natural, but not great.

@year5teacher £11k for boarding per term is cheap, so not sure where you're getting 'crazy' expensive from

Also many state schools have sports facilities. My state secondary school and all others in the area had purpose build sports facilities, swimming pools etc.

Following your logic you’d also have to ban private tutors and extra curricular activities (swimming, music lessons, football, dance, drama, Cubs etc).

But why ban anything? Why not petition the government to invest in state schools and teachers to bring all state schools up to the standard of good private schools. Narrow the gap that way.

@Therewillbetroubleahead

What about special schools? Many of them are private, should they be abolished too? Remembering of course in order to get a funded place at one of these schools that state will already have decided it cannot teach them.

I think the first thing that needs to happen is sort out the sorry state which is the SEN provision in comps. Parents of children with SEN especially need to make the choice of a school which is going to benefit their kid the most. I would never begrudge them that. And also, it doesn’t come with the same level of privilege.

The inequality looking at that, which can only be bought for 11k a term, and the fact that at my placement school there wasn’t enough money for post-it’s is just a joke. It shouldn’t happen.

You think the state schools should be upgraded to that level then? Not sure the general public would want to pay the amount required to pay for that out of their taxes.

Think about it though - the private school I saw the other week (mentioned in in a previous comment, went to a town which had a crazy expensive boarding school) had its own first class cricket pitch, it’s own rugby pitch, it’s own CHAPEL ffs, state school can never compete with that.

Many state schools have better facilities than private schools. Most private schools run on very tight budgets.

As has been said, if you closed private schools, the best state ones would become even more highly demanded, leading to increased house prices in the catchment area, resulting in the exact same problem but under a different name. The richest would still have exclusive access to the best schools.

The only way would be to improve all state schools to an equal level of quality somehow.

Anyway in terms of the history of human existence, capitalism has been the prevailing economic system for just a blink of an eye. As we continue to advance intellectually and socially, we will eventually move past it. It's clearly not the best system for humankind overall. We're not there yet, but with the richest accumulating more and more of the wealth and the gap between them and the masses getting bigger and bigger, I'd imagine we're not tooo far off.

“ HOkieCOkie
Sorry no it’s not Morally wrong to take the best education you can afford for your child.
No, but the issue is that the best education is something that can be bought in the first place.”

But OP this applies to virtually everything for children, be it education, health care, security, travel, housing, extra curricular activities....

My dd has had a private specialist education at a cost to the taxpayer, my other two children went to a CofE state secondary and a sink estate secondary.
All have been equally as good in their own way, except the CofE secondary that failed my child. It was also one of the best state in the area.
It's whether the school fits the child that's important and how parents support.
I don't have any GCSE's, although do have a PgCE, we are a low income family but culture and education were important to us as parents.
You do your best for your kids whichever school they attend, hether rich or poor.

[quote dwiz8]@year5teacher £11k for boarding per term is cheap, so not sure where you're getting 'crazy' expensive from

Also many state schools have sports facilities. My state secondary school and all others in the area had purpose build sports facilities, swimming pools etc.

[/quote]
I must be wrong on the price then because there was no way it was a cheap private school.

I don’t think you understand - the England cricket team played on their pitch. They have their own chapel. The school literally has about 8 or 9 buildings.

It’s not the same as a state school.

@AnneLovesGilbert

Would you ban faith schools as well!

@AnneLovesGilbert those should never ever have been allowed in the first place. That's institutional child abuse, paid from my atheist taxes.

You do use states schools even if you dont have children or send your children to independent schools. We all benefit hugely from everyone having a basic education and although some jobs are dominated by private schools, many other essential jobs are staffed by state educated pupils. Lots of nurses, fire crew etc

@Choochoose

It's not just that - senior government politicians regularly visit Eton and Harrow etc and talk to the pupils - they don't bother with the schools the rest of us use.

Yep, I think they shouldn't be able to attend any schools to be honest above a certain level as they cannot offer to all. We did have the local MP for a talk when I was at school, but in honesty none of us really knew who they were so it probably didn't have the impact that they hoped for...

I know a lot of MPs. Pretty much all of them visit their local schools regularly and they regularly (pre covid) had schools down to London for a tour of parliament.

But if schools don’t invite them they don’t go.

£11k for boarding per term is cheap, so not sure where you're getting 'crazy' expensive from

It certainly isn’t if not boarding. £33k a year is double most day fees once you step away from the ‘big name’ schools.

The problem with abolishing the private schools, @year5teacher, is that the money that funds them - the fees paid by the parents - will not be available to the state system, to fund the provision of all those extra state school places. There would be no extra tax revenue - parents who pay school fees do so from their after-tax income, so they are already funding the state schools as well as paying for their own children’s education.

The state system simply could not cope - there isn’t enough school capacity, and there wouldn’t be enough teachers. You couldn’t simply take over the private school campuses - unless the government seized them (without compensating the businesses that own them) and it would cost too much to buy them (with no extra tax revenue to fund the purchases). Nor could you expect all the private school teachers to move into the state system - they might not want to work with the big class sizes of the state system, and state school pay may well be lower than private school pay - and you still have the question of how to pay them, even if they do all transfer across - because of no extra tax revenue.

It is simply not financially or practically viable.

@RedtreesRedtrees

“ HOkieCOkie Sorry no it’s not Morally wrong to take the best education you can afford for your child. No, but the issue is that the best education is something that can be bought in the first place.”

But OP this applies to virtually everything for children, be it education, health care, security, travel, housing, extra curricular activities....

Yes it does apply to education, health, security, and housing.

I don’t feel that everyone needs to have exactly the same thing - but the level of disparity we have in this country is absolutely obscene, and it’s inexcusable. We have children whose parents literally cannot afford to have the lights on, and children whose parents can pay hundreds of thousands for their education.

This is totally, completely and utterly wrong in my opinion. It actually saddens me so much.

@Therewillbetroubleahead

Think about it though - the private school I saw the other week (mentioned in in a previous comment, went to a town which had a crazy expensive boarding school) had its own first class cricket pitch, it’s own rugby pitch, it’s own CHAPEL ffs, state school can never compete with that.

Many state schools have better facilities than private schools. Most private schools run on very tight budgets.

Agreed. Fettes (of Tony Blair fame) uses the pitches and theatre at Broughton High across the road.

@year5teacher well you're the one throwing out £11k for boarding is expensive over and over again

Most in the south east are in the £20k-£30k per term mark for full boarding

And I get your point, but having nice sports facilities isn't something state schools don't have. The issue with state schools is the level of attainment most of the students 'aspire' to.

But OP this applies to virtually everything for children, be it education, health care, security, travel, housing, extra curricular activities

And that's wrong, isn't it?

My special measures state school had separate rugby, football, hockey, gym tracks, cricket, performing arts, tennis and sports hall...

Honestly, OP, I'd love to hear your thoughts about non-school education and social background as an influence on outcomes. Because all those things will still exist if you get rid of private schools.

I used to think banning them was the way to go, but not to so much anymore. As others have said, You’d merely change the location of the battle without changing the result.

So I wouldn’t ban private schools but we should strive to achieve a society in which the vast majority of parents value education as a priority, in which there are hundreds of books in every home, in which classroom discipline is virtually never an issue.

The problem in Britain is a vastly unequal society and a society in which too many parents don’t believe or push their children to achieve academically. That can be either in an extreme way - eg children getting in gangs and with no books at home. Or a lesser way - bright lower middle class kids getting applauded for getting a B grade when they should be pushing for an A.

Studies have shown that the biggest indicator of success is not parental wealth or even parental educational level. It’s how many books a child has in his/her home. IE educational environment/parental motivation for their children to reach their potential.

You sort all that out, then the schools issue resolved itself to a significant degree. Not easy, but you need to tackle problems at their roots.