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?

Bringing everyone down to a comparatively worse level. Closing down centres of excellence. It'll hit the middle classes not the super rich and put the responsibility of thousands of kids onto an overly stretched system.

@sst1234 I had this whole convo with you yesterday about how generational inequality feeds into low aspirations and faith in education (which I think is what you would call “feckless”) but you didn’t want to listen to any of it, and kept accusing me of using “soundbites” whenever I answered you.

Of course there are some shit parents, but I and other posters have spoken about how poor children other people have characterised as “13 year old drug dealers” are way more likely to go down that route than children with way more money, and there’s parents in deprived areas who would do anything for their children not to go down that road but it can be pushing against a tide of outside influences.

@AnneLovesGilbert

Would you ban faith schools as well!

Absolutely

Yes lots of parents with crap lives want better for their children. How does little Hugo going to Harrow make those children less likely to succeed?

@year5teacher

So how do you stop a “13 year year old drug dealer” from going down that route by abolishing private schools?

[quote Commonwasher]@TorkTorkBam
Really??!

More Borises, Goves, Rees-Moggs and Cummingses??

I can think of nothing worse.
I would have thought that more over-privileged white males feathering their own nests and organising the ‘truth’ to suit them is precisely what we can do without...[/quote]
Absolutely.

I agree and I went to one. They ensure that class structures are entrenched in this country. In particular, politicians of all parties should not be able to send their kids private. Then they might see how properly funding schools is so important. They couldn’t give a flying xxxx about the situation state schools find themselves in because their little darlings don’t go to them.

There are about 615000 private school pupils in the UK, where are you going to send them?

How will you square the tax paid by those parents now going to fund their children's state education rather than paying tax and not using that service but paying again to send their child to private school?

Closing down centres of excellence

No, opening them up to everyone, not just those with the money to pay for them. Why should “centres of excellence” only be available to the wealthy?

@year5teacher excellent, and exactly the case!!
I’ll leave it to you to point out to @sst1234 that ‘infantilising’ has very little to do with it, it’s simply easier to avoid the unforgivable sin of ‘underachieving’ if you have a trust fund and parents with contacts....

@VinylDetective somebody needs to pay for them.several consecutive governments have made it VERY clear that education is very much not a priority and have run the state system into the ground. The private system is still good because its paid for by parents. If the government is put in charge, it will be run down in no time.

And hurrah for @VinylDetective

If the government is put in charge, it will be run down in no time

Depends what colour the government is.

No, opening them up to everyone, not just those with the money to pay for them. Why should “centres of excellence” only be available to the wealthy?

^

Who is going to pay for these centres of excellence when they are open to everyone? Who chooses which children are to go to them?

@VinylDetective the problem is, the state system is so run into the ground, it will take decades to fix. Keeping private schools at their current status from central funds would mean letting the rest of the system go under completely, which makes no sense whatsoever.
Fixing the state system while letting private schools be makes more sense - once state education is at a across the board decent level, Most private education will go out of business automatically.

I'd love to live in a country where parents who can afford private had enough faith that the state sector would help their kid to perform to the best of their individual ability that they didn't feel they needed to ring-fence their kids in private schools.
The primary opposite us is rated 'requires improvement' in EVERY category. The school tries, but can't do much about the fact that a large minority of kids arrive at age5 not speaking English fluently enough for regular classes, and another sizeable minority have parents who don't/won't get them through the gates every morning (both issues highlighted in the Ofsted report).
Rather than spend taxpayers money funding the state-eduction of the 7% children (18% post-16) who are currently privately educated, we'd be better off allocating that cash (if it even exists) to improving schools for the children whose parents can't afford it.

To put it in numbers: According to posts above, there are about 500 000 kids in private education In the uk. Each of these pays about £15 000 per year for this.
Most schools are charities and don’t make a profit, so costs are pretty similar to income, but for the sake of the argument let’s say you need £10 000 per child and year yo keep things running. So you need to find an extra £5 000 000 000 in the education budget, per year. Good luck.

My parents made great sacrifices to send me to a private school because I was being bullied in the local schools. They were a lifesaver.

@Atadaddicted Very bright students can absolutely benefit in the private sector over the state alternative, where there is difference in breadth of curriculum. I have two of them. I know very clearly what the choice and benefit is. Yes they would get a handful of good grades anywhere, but they have a much broader range of subjects/languages/arts and creative subjects; much better opportunity to find their strengths and direction, and a much more positive and supportive personal experience overall. They learn where learning is highly valued and it's cool to be clever. That is great for their self-esteem, as well as their engagement and attainment. Not all kids thrive in the same environment.

Fixing the state system while letting private schools be makes more sense - once state education is at a across the board decent level, Most private education will go out of business automatically

You’re right for most private schools. Unfortunately the really elite ones will keep right on going and they’re the ones that really need to go. For as long as entitled little boys are put through Eton and Oxbridge where they’re taught that they were born to rule the world, nothing’s going to change.

For as long as entitled little boys are put through Eton and Oxbridge where they’re taught that they were born to rule the world, nothing’s going to change.

Yes!

That's a small proportion of the private sector.

@year5teacher

For as long as entitled little boys are put through Eton and Oxbridge where they’re taught that they were born to rule the world, nothing’s going to change.

Yes!

Entitled to what?

Eton is highly academic in this day and age.

Oh please! Academic my arse, the took Prince Harry, didn’t they?

Centres of excellence exist because they are privately funded and not publicly owned.

There are some excellent schools and practices in the public sector - why is that not possible across the board?