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?

Brilliant post @Tollergirl

I’d rather someone who’s bandying it about told me what they mean by it.

Not that I am banding it around but my understanding of the term is that it describes those folk who are happy to espouse socialist ideals while enjoying a relatively affluent lifestyle. People of the do as I say and not as I do mindset.

@DoubleTweenQueen - believe it or not I have friends who send their children to private school so I know they are normal people too. However it doesn't stop me feeling sad that a two tier system is viewed as necessary or in your case is necessary due to lack of provision in state schools. I do wonder whether the provision would be improved if there was a greater political will for state school investment. If those in power actively used and supported public sector then perhaps this wouldn't happen. Or perhaps this is wishful thinking on my part.

Nothing wrong with having a dream ..

@DillonPanthersTexas

Why do people who lean right wing always maintain that anyone who is left wing is middle to upper class?

Do you have any evidence for this or is it just a massive strawman?

All the “champagne socialism” comments on this very thread, the “where were you in 2019 when working class northerners voted Tory”, another poster saying left wingers are “woke middle class justice warriors”... I could go on and that’s just this thread.

@DillonPanthersTexas

I’d rather someone who’s bandying it about told me what they mean by it.

Not that I am banding it around but my understanding of the term is that it describes those folk who are happy to espouse socialist ideals while enjoying a relatively affluent lifestyle. People of the do as I say and not as I do mindset.

Thank you, that’s helpful. But why should money preclude you from wanting life to be better for everyone? I can entirely see the hypocrisy of advocating for the abolition of private education and healthcare while using them but I don’t see anyone here saying they’re doing that.

If I’m going to be accused of being a champagne socialist I’d quite like to know what the accuser means

I haven't accused anyone on this thread of being a champagne socialist, but I've used the phrase. I'd say it means a person for whom the privileged lifestyle they choose to have directly and specifically goes against the socialist ideals they claim to believe in.

I don't think that means that every wealthy socialist can be accused of being a champagne socialist. It implies actual hypocrisy in a 'say one thing but do the opposite' kind of way.

What should a middle-class socialist do to be less hypocritical? Give all their money away to somebody more in need? Will that help institute socialism?

7% in private education in England.
Spend on 5-16 education was £39 billion in 2017
Cost of banning private schools would be nearly £3b to the tax payer.

I can entirely see the hypocrisy of advocating for the abolition of private education and healthcare while using them

I'm not even sure that's so reprehensible for an individual (though it doesn't look good for a politician). Arguably you can want (and vote for) change while still doing the best you can for your family in the system that currently exists.

Vynyldetective
Two people on this thread have said they abhor private and want it banned while using it for themselves. Sorry the thread is very long and I can’t face trawling through it to find these posts.

@VinylDetective

Would someone tell me exactly what “champagne socialist” means?

Champagne socialist is a political term originating in the United Kingdom. The phrase is used to describe self-identified socialists whose luxurious upper middle-class or "preppy" lifestyles (perhaps including consumption of Champagne) apparently contradict their political convictions. In other words Tony Blair et al?

@lazylinguist

I can entirely see the hypocrisy of advocating for the abolition of private education and healthcare while using them

I'm not even sure that's so reprehensible for an individual (though it doesn't look good for a politician). Arguably you can want (and vote for) change while still doing the best you can for your family in the system that currently exists.

Really? You don’t think that’s hypocritical? I think it epitomises hypocrisy. The only way public services will ever improve is if the well heeled and sharp elbowed use them and demand that they’re better.

Knock yourself out. Just trying to be friendly. Clearly not welcome or needed

Tollergirl - you say ‘ PS I wouldn't swap my home but I would support paying higher taxes to support services that work with the homeless. Is that ok with you?’

The good news is you can pay more tax and decide where it should go. Here is a letter from the Guardian:

Susan Reynolds (Letters, 28 September) says: “I want to pay more tax for the public services I enjoy.” She might be relieved to know that she may do so simply by sending a cheque to HMRC. I understand that you can even specify where you would like to see that money spent. Interestingly, the government releases those figures on an annual basis, and it appears that 15 people have done so in the last two years. This makes me think dissemination of the exact process for making voluntary tax payments is perhaps a public service you may care to take up for the convenience of your readership. HMRC has (for some reason) neglected to promote this course of action on its website as heavily as one may have expected. I wonder why?

It’s one of the most fundamental human drives to want to provide the best possible lives for your offspring. To rob people of the liberty to pursue that goal to the best of their ability would be a tyranny of such grand proportions we could no longer accurately describe ourselves as a free society.

The only liberties I am happy to curtail are ones involving the initiation of the use of force. That said I am more than happy to look to improve funding and support for state funded education, I find those motivated to abolish private education are driven by a hatred of the rich more so than a love of the disadvantaged.

@Dervel

It’s one of the most fundamental human drives to want to provide the best possible lives for your offspring. To rob people of the liberty to pursue that goal to the best of their ability would be a tyranny of such grand proportions we could no longer accurately describe ourselves as a free society.

The only liberties I am happy to curtail are ones involving the initiation of the use of force. That said I am more than happy to look to improve funding and support for state funded education, I find those motivated to abolish private education are driven by a hatred of the rich more so than a love of the disadvantaged.

There’s more than one way of providing the best possible lives for your offspring. Scandinavian countries manage to allow people to do it without disadvantaging other people’s children.

I find those motivated to abolish private education are driven by a hatred of the rich more so than a love of the disadvantaged.

What a generalisation which I feel, in my experience, isn’t true. I think this is something people like to trot out to invalidate the argument of removing structural inequality, e.g the “you just hate men” bunch.

Thank you, that’s helpful. But why should money preclude you from wanting life to be better for everyone?

It doesn't. But there are clearly enough wealthy people out there talking a good game without willing to take any serious risk to their current lifestyle to achieve it, hence the stereotype. At the end of the day we are a relatively low tax country, if people want Scandinavian style welfare state they are going to have to pay a lot for it, and that means everyone, not just some nebulas notion of 'the rich'. I hear loads of people on here proudly claiming that they would happily pay more taxes to build a more equitable society but they rarely articulate by how much they are willing to pay. Truth is that a Scandinavian style state will probably cost a 20% drop in take home income for everyone.

No not at all life is what it is.

Truth is that a Scandinavian style state will probably cost a 20% drop in take home income for everyone

And that would be entirely fair. Wouldn’t it?

There is no political will to offer an excellent education to all and never will be. The most we can hope for is better equality of opportunity and consistency across the state system. That won't preclude a private system catering for specific niches, and nor should it.

And societal inequality and lack of engagement with learning and developing skills, and the barriers to that, is a whole world of complex issues. How do you solve that?

@year5teacher it doesn’t invalidate your argument at all, but it does go after the premise of it. Where your argument loses (it’s validity is still logically fine but something can be logically valid yet still wrong) is as I claimed in the first paragraph is the infringement of liberty it would require to enact.

Further examination incorporating the Swedish model, and thanks for bringing it up whomever that was! Is that all you achieve is the barrier for private education is just higher, super wealthy swedes will just send kids abroad to any number of excellent academic institutions overseas.

All you have really achieved is further blocks to social mobility and furthered the gap between the opportunities afforded to the very rich and everyone else! It’s either a failure of joined up thinking, or it is as I suspected motivated by hatred of those better off. You pick!

If you've acknowledged that money buys better education, then it's at our own peril to abolish it.

Instead, we should address why there is a gap in the quality of education in non-private schools and try to bridge it.

And that would be entirely fair. Wouldn’t it?
Depends on how you define fair, which you will never get agreement on.

In Sweden if you earn roughly between £1700 and £40,000 you pay 32% tax. Between £40k and £58k you pay 52%, above that it is 57%.

Should the lowest earners in Sweden have a third of their salary taken in tax?