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?

It seems when schools receive a batch of funding they use it for technology. I'm probably I'm the minority but I don't think computers are necessarily the answer. I would spend it on more teachers.

Having worked 20+ years in professional roles - private and public - I can say without hesitation that candidates are chosen on their individual qualities and achievements, and ability to think independently and critically.
Sometimes, a particular handful of universities have been favoured, due to the quality and content of their relevant courses.
Where they went to school has never been considered.

@year5teacher

Those parents who didn't value education were ones who had mainly had bad experiences as kids- considered stupid or naughty. Often where at school they were preoccupied by what awaited them at home. But they felt education had done them no good why would it be different for their kid?

Agreed. This is the thing, this won’t happen at private school or hardly as much. This is why it’s not right that this kind of experience gets repeated throughout generations of often low income families, and then their children don’t get the same opportunities. It just shuts the door for so many children before they’ve even had a chance to open it.

OP, why are treating kids as stupid or naughty in state schools? By your admission this won’t happen in a private school. Why are you choosing to behave this way as a state school teacher. And if you are not, as you are about to tell me, then I don’t get your point.

As for parents behaving this way, that won’t change even if you abolished private schools.

@sst1234 what a silly and deliberately goady comment.
I don’t represent every single state school teacher, unfortunately, so that doesn’t really do anything to further your point.

@sevencontinents everybody contributes to fund public services including schools so that every child has a decent education. If the state sector requires more funding then we must pay more. I would willingly do so because I recognise the value of education. This is despite the fact that I already pay an enormous amount of tax and my dcs do t use the service. So I have already contributed a fair share towards the education of other people’s children. I’ve discharged my obligation to society in that regard and I should be free to make my own arrangements for my children’s education. We clearly have very different perspectives and views on what ‘society’ is for.

@DoubleTweenQueen

Having worked 20+ years in professional roles - private and public - I can say without hesitation that candidates are chosen on their individual qualities and achievements, and ability to think independently and critically. Sometimes, a particular handful of universities have been favoured, due to the quality and content of their relevant courses. Where they went to school has never been considered.

Hmmmm. Perhaps that is your experience but the networking connections that can be made from attending certain private schools have been well documented.

[quote year5teacher]@sst1234 what a silly and deliberately goady comment.
I don’t represent every single state school teacher, unfortunately, so that doesn’t really do anything to further your point.[/quote]
Of course it’s silly. Because your ideological stance doesn’t equate with reality and you haven’t yet managed to explain how abolishing private schools will improve parental guidance. Repeating the same generic soundbite about equality doesn’t actually advance equality.

To be fair, I find the thread title, along with your general simplistic and prejudiced view, a bit goady.

@sst1234 can I ask you why you feel that keeping private schools doesn’t impact on children’s equality of opportunity?

People have told me plenty about how it apparently won’t do anything to help. So why do you think it doesn’t make a difference to outcomes for all children?

YABU
It’s also unfair that some kid shave one parent,
Some have shit parents,
Some read with them, some can’t be arsed
Some stick them on front of the TV all day,
Some feed their kids crap, others cook healthy meals, some parents work, some don’t and have more time for their kids.
All of these things make a huge difference to a child’s life. School probably less so.

@RedtreesRedtrees yes but my question wasn't really about what society is for. My question was really about rights and choices and why some people have more of those than others . Plenty of people pay their taxes, pay their duty to society etc but their financial circumstances mean that they do not have the same choice or 'right' as you to educate their children privately. So my question is, why should you have this 'right' when they do not? I hope that doesn't come across as goady. That's not my intention. I genuinely want to understand how this could possibly fair or moral so my deduction is that you know it's not, but that you believe that as long as you have paid your duty to society, then your right to have more choice than others is vindicated. It's here that we differ, I think.

So would you also ban private music lessons? Stagecoach? Cricket clubs, scouts, Duke of Edinburgh, holidays in France? Because they all give advantage?

And if you ban all of them, I can still teach my ds advanced maths and science, while you aren’t looking.

You’ll never make every adult an equally good parent, OP, nor should you try.

@sevencontinents I’m afraid you’re going to have to exemplify that for me.
So is it certain private schools/certain professions/within a certain timeframe? Or more generalised? (The Eton/Oxford connection within recent Gvmnts is a sad and unfortunate example)

The talk at my eldest’s school now is the fact that they will be actively discriminated against. Doesn’t matter how hard they work.

@DoubleTweenQueen

To be fair, I find the thread title, along with your general simplistic and prejudiced view, a bit goady.

Fair enough, I’d consider someone asking me why I’m treating kids like they’re stupid and naughty just a little more goady than that.

@Mintjulia

So would you also ban private music lessons? Stagecoach? Cricket clubs, scouts, Duke of Edinburgh, holidays in France? Because they all give advantage?

And if you ban all of them, I can still teach my ds advanced maths and science, while you aren’t looking.

You’ll never make every adult an equally good parent, OP, nor should you try.

I’ve answered this lots of times in the thread, addressing why the “well just ban everything then” argument is redundant.

You will not abolish the big public schools, not will you transfer them to state ownership. All you would do is to make them even more exclusive than you believe they are now.

Currently, not all pupils are from high earning families, thanks to the bursary system. If you "abolish" them, you risk creating super-elite schools available only to the very wealthiest families, mostly from abroad.
If you insist on making them state schools, parents will be moving Heaven and Earth to get their children in, just as they do now with the top state grammars now.
Is that really what you want?

[quote year5teacher]@sst1234 can I ask you why you feel that keeping private schools doesn’t impact on children’s equality of opportunity?

People have told me plenty about how it apparently won’t do anything to help. So why do you think it doesn’t make a difference to outcomes for all children?[/quote]
Not being able to support your own argument and turning it back is a little disappointing to be honest, and someone who felt strong enough to start a thread about it.

But here goes.... Most disadvantaged pupils with dysfunctional lives won’t magically become high achievers just because private schools disappear. Learning and education at school is just 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the remaining 138 hours a week, parents have the biggest and most profound impact on their children’s development, propensity to learn and desire to achieve. In fact that impact gates carried into school and influences how they respond to teachers, peers and general surroundings. Disappearance of private schools does nothing to change this. Neither does treating teachers as proxies for parents.

The argument against private schools is wholly idealistic, it is a form of axe-grinding by socialists, and well meaning centrists often fall for this thinking that it is somehow progressive to waste their energy of these soundbites and romantic ideals by creating villains out of private institutions.

[quote DoubleTweenQueen]@sevencontinents I’m afraid you’re going to have to exemplify that for me.
So is it certain private schools/certain professions/within a certain timeframe? Or more generalised? (The Eton/Oxford connection within recent Gvmnts is a sad and unfortunate example)

The talk at my eldest’s school now is the fact that they will be actively discriminated against. Doesn’t matter how hard they work.[/quote]
But that's a related problem then, isn't it? That now, because of this two-tier system, even the most privileged children are feeling discriminated against in a very Roundabout way.

I would have agreed with you at one time op.

I don't think you have addressed home education. I assume for equality's sake it would also be abolished.

I can't wait to live in a communist utopia where the state controls our every move, decides our level of wealth and eliminates our freedom of choice. Bring it on. Sounds wonderful.

@sst1234 I’ve given you so many examples of why abolishing public schools will help structural inequality in the long term, and how that inequality feeds into the attitude that parents have to education and therefore the experience their children have of it. If you don’t agree with it, that’s completely up to you, but I have defended my point of view plenty.

So your attitude is basically “it won’t fix everything so we won’t bother”. Excellent.

I think the emphasis on this thread is wrong. We should all be shouting and screaming to get the state sector overhauled and improved to offer a consistent and broad high quality of education for all kids. All of them. No lottery, no variation between postcodes and catchments. And much more effort into identifying and engaging the very young who have no engagement or aspiration.
Academic and vocational courses, to suit all talents and strengths.

Just calling for private schools to be abolished is very short sighted, and a bit pointless. It won’t solve a thing you say you have concerns about.

@extrappe

I can't wait to live in a communist utopia where the state controls our every move, decides our level of wealth and eliminates our freedom of choice. Bring it on. Sounds wonderful.

Haha hahaha. You have clearly demonstrated zero understanding of the topic under debate, which is a shame, as there have been some insightful arguments. But making accusations of extremism is just laughable, sorry.

Also, you either believe private schooling upholds or contributes to inequality, in which case you’re advocating for carrying this on because you personally see no point in changing it. Or you don’t believe it contributes to inequality, in which case I’m not sure what to say to convince you that hasn’t already been said.

I send my children to state school. This has no effect on the education of their peers, I promise you. But they are using public resources. And taking places at a reasonably well regarded school. If I sent them private there would be more money and school spaces for the other state pupils.