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?

No we should not ban private schools OP. Why an earth should we? Because you and I don’t send our kids to a private school? I’m assuming you would have a different view if you had worked hard to be able to afford to send your children to private school.

I can see how it seems unfair and I agree that they do get a head start compared to state schools.. this doesn’t mean that they WILL be high earners or children that had a private education are in high flying jobs.

Plus it’s life we can’t have everything and just because we don’t have what somebody else has!

I wouldn't ban them, because I'm generally not in favour of banning things. But I would treat them as businesses, not charities, so no tax breaks and none of that fluff about them benefitting wider society.

I agree.

Planetaryexplorer

I think yabu because ultimately it will just create inequality somewhere else.
The answer is to raise the standard of state schools so that no-one feels the need to go private.

I dont necessarily agree that private schools are of a better standard - but better facilities and most importantly halved class sizes make a huge difference. But I dont think enough people would vote for that, especially if the rich ones can just bypass the state sector instead.

It was really interesting (and depressing) to see the government's determination to avoid part time, small group teaching at all costs. They know, if people tasted it, theyd realise how crazy classes of 30+ are, and theyd want to continue with the smaller classes.

Where do you stop?

Should we ban all 5* hotels because rich people have nicer and more frequent holidays?

Should we stop rich people accessing the best roads in Central London and buying £50 million properties - because that's also unfair - they are living in nicer property than say you or me?

Should we ban people driving nice cars? Very expensive Rolls Royces and the like. No more Ferraris.

The thing is, we live in a free market economy. That's capitalism. It's not fair at all at times.

We cannot judge or penalise people on how they spend their money. There's a thing called tax that everyone pays.

And yes I think at the moment things are grossly unfair the rich should pay a huge amount more towards funding the government.

We definitely need a better funded state system.

In the end it's not the fault of the private schools that the state system is crap.

It's the fault of the government. Other countries manage a good state system like Germany.

Germany is richer than the UK though and brings in more money than the UK. Therefore it can pay for better schooling amongst other things in addition to better hospitals as well (look at the coronavirus recently and how well they handled it).

In the end we need to make more money and/or divert money from elsewhere to pay for better schooling and we need a higher tax take from rich companies and individuals. Tax rate in Germany is definitely higher than here.

Peter Hitchens made a point recently about Boris Johnson and the modern British Conservative Party which was absolutely spot on.

A real Conservative Party I could consider voting for. But the UK Conservative Party isn’t “conservative” in the slightest. It doesn’t conserve or protect, it sells. It should be called the Everything for Sale Larty. National industries chopped up and sold off to foreign industries/states, Libraries gone, green spaces gone, Schools turned to “academies”, playing fields, early years centers etc, Britain’s wildlife, the very environment itself. Next the BBC. You name it, they want to sell it. Conservatives? Hahaha. Literally the only thing they conserve is the vast profits of their wealthy donors. ...And so we now come to the topic of Brexit... :-)

I'm really intrigued by the 'would you just ban helping your children' and the 'life's not fair suck it up' type responses

It seems lacking in depth and imagination.

The only way we could get rid of private education would be in a more equal society so parents buying things for their kids wouldn't be as divisive.

A more equal society is better for propel throughout the society and is, I think, a worthy aim.

I also find it very sad that the assumption in these responses is that human nature is to be selfish.

It's not.

Capitalism encourages people to be selfish. The major win of the current system is that it has been so successful in convincing people that this is natural.

'I paid to make my son a racist.'

Are you saying that private schools are full of racists? I find that very hard to believe.

@Dee1975

Would you ban everything that money can buy? Would you insist that we all drive the same car, ate food from the same supermarket etc ...? Money does buy you choices.

Exactly. That’s why schools teach children to aim high as money gives you more choices in life. No point doing a high level job or extremely long hours etc if you not get any benefit from it.

*better for people

I wish I could edit my original post to have a stock answer to the “well why don’t we just ban everything then?” question...

More support for single child families, less stigma for those single child families who have to claim benefits, more funding for state schools to provide after school activities.

It’s not about banning, it’s about providing.

Didn’t we do this though with the sure start centres? But all that happened was those who would have benefitted most didn’t use them, and they ended up being added to the middle class mums range of activities.

I wonder if it would be better the other way. We are all taxed less from the start but then when you have a child you are charged extra tax out of your earnings for their state education. Perhaps it would make people think about personal responsibility and value the education system, in turn raising standards. As with many things in the UK, if it’s free people abuse it. Just a musing though, before I get lynched.

Op, state schools under pin and hold back and fail many dc who simply need to learn in a different way.

Honestly, if we want to talk about leveling up society, firstly teacher training needs tweaking. Not by a lot. Just a little.
And access to properly trained SENCO s,who actually know about sen... Access to educational psychologists, then proper follow up support for these learners.

We all know the impact a dis engaged learner has on a class. Many times those learners simply have no understanding of what's being taught because it's not being taught in the correct way for them.

Parents of dc with suspected sen, then become the child's sole chance of success.
An invested parent may be able to save that child.
Many parents will not be able too.
My personal experience has caused me to loose all faith in the education system as is and currently I have excepted I will be educating my child, where and when I can as I work, along side paid tutors that I am lucky enough to be able to afford (wouldn't have a few years ago).

This is as said, a highly successful school in a leafy middle class area.

@moofolk

I'm really intrigued by the 'would you just ban helping your children' and the 'life's not fair suck it up' type responses

It seems lacking in depth and imagination.

The only way we could get rid of private education would be in a more equal society so parents buying things for their kids wouldn't be as divisive.

A more equal society is better for propel throughout the society and is, I think, a worthy aim.

I also find it very sad that the assumption in these responses is that human nature is to be selfish.

It's not.

Capitalism encourages people to be selfish. The major win of the current system is that it has been so successful in convincing people that this is natural.

ALL OF THIS. You’ve summed it up so well.

@toastmeahotcrossbun

'I paid to make my son a racist.'

Are you saying that private schools are full of racists? I find that very hard to believe.

Nope, I'm saying that this was her experience.

But as private schools by their nature encourage kids to see themselves as better than others (if parents didn't think it was better they wouldn't pay), and due to structural inequality are less diverse than state schools, yes there are probably a higher proportion of racists.

Should we ban all 5 hotels because rich people have nicer and more frequent holidays?*

Should we stop rich people accessing the best roads in Central London and buying £50 million properties - because that's also unfair - they are living in nicer property than say you or me?

Should we ban people driving nice cars? Very expensive Rolls Royces and the like. No more Ferraris.

These are commodities, education is a social good. Totally different class of thing.

I wouldn't ban them, but this argument is spurious.

I've not read the whole thread but you can't blame under achieving state schools on achieving private schools. If anything achieving schools should be emulated.

Do you have any ideas about how they should be emulated?

A number of parents of kids at the excellent independent girls' day school I taught at admitted to me that the main reason they chose the school was not for the Oxbridge-educated teachers, the curriculum, the facilities or the extracurricular opportunities (much of which would be very hard to emulate in a state school). They chose it because of the kind of classmates their girls would have - highly intelligent, aspirational, hard-working, well-spoken ones who would be a good influence on each other.

I paid to make my son a racist.'
Is that what Diane Abbott did when she sent her son to CoL?

@year5teacher

Thanks.

Yes that's how I see it. And if private schools are so great why the lack of critical thought?!

Having private schools, grammar schools etc creates a tiered education system.

It creates schools that are worse by demarcating some as better.

This seems to be a blind spot in the pro-private camp.

But as private schools by their nature encourage kids to see themselves as better than others (if parents didn't think it was better they wouldn't pay),

That’s just daft.

@Swelteringmeltering I think everything you’re saying is pretty spot on.

Teacher training definitely needs adjusting. It’s so dependent on who you get as a mentor.

SEN provision in state schools is pretty lacking. I hate that parents have to advocate for their children so much and it seems that often schools don’t offer the right support or listen to the needs of the child and the experience of the parents.

I actually feel that the education system as a whole needs an overhaul. We’re too focused on exams, on teaching them stuff they’re probably never going to use and not teaching them stuff they will - like budgeting!!

Couldn’t agree more about the Ed psych point.

I feel like this thread has been great because of commenters like you who really make me think about stuff. So much needs to change in the state education system and frankly I really can’t blame individual parents for sending their kids to private school (as I said in the OP).

I think private schools are one part of many that needs to change to give all children a better education.

My own DC (big name) indie was considerably more racially diverse that the local state comp.

@lazylinguist

Not St Paul's then

“ year5teacher

I wish I could edit my original post to have a stock answer to the “well why don’t we just ban everything then?” question...”

But it’s a valid point. There are several pps suggesting that society should be made ‘fairer’ or ‘more equal’ but what does that mean in practice? When you talk about equal opportunities for all children what does that mean and how far does it extend?

I wouldn't ban them, because I'm generally not in favour of banning things. But I would treat them as businesses, not charities, so no tax breaks and none of that fluff about them benefitting wider society.

^This. I'm quite prejudiced, because I went to a private convent school, which played a significant part in the SA I was going through, and my DSis was abused there, too, despite not being a pupil there. (We were sexually abused by my F, too.)

I know that there are no doubt a lot of private schools where abuse doesn't happen, but these places have too often been above suspicion, which has allowed abuse to happen in too many private schools.

But banning private schools isn't going to happen, so removing charity status would make a lot of sense, as they're surely businesses rather than charities.

They chose it because of the kind of classmates their girls would have - highly intelligent, aspirational, hard-working, well-spoken ones who would be a good influence on each other

Aren't those sort of schools the ones where the girls often have terrible mental health issues? I don't think all girls schools are good, whether private or satte, having been to an all girls' grammar.

I would like to see a system where the state schools were so good that nobody felt the need to send their children to private schools (except those wanting to avoid the plebs, and there's not much you can do about them). Look at somewhere like Germany and barely anyone goes privately. I only ever met one person who'd been to a private school and she was boarding school in the UK. It means that they have plenty of money for other things when they're not paying fees.

@lifeafter50

I paid to make my son a racist.' Is that what Diane Abbott did when she sent her son to CoL?

A black person went to private school so there can't be racists there. 😬