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?

I would say it’s more about making really good standards of education accessible to everyone

No one would disagree but your criticism is misplaced. This isn’t anything to do with independent schools.

Ultimately, this is an ideological issue which will not be resolved. I might be cynical but I do not believe that those who are privileged by and large are interested in redresssing social inequality but rather in cementing it, and those are the people who govern us. The responses on this thread very much typify this callousness - it is all about me and what I can afford, with little regard for the fate of those who cannot afford better. Basically, it's tough luck if you're not born to parents who can afford better for you, suck it up and shut up while you go through poor schooling, heaving infrastructure and a huge lack of resourcing.

Studies show clear evidence that those from state education outperform private educated students.

There will always be a disparity. Even without private schooling they would be at an advantage of a general better standard of living, ability to afford tutoring etc. I look at it that these parents are supporting state schools, as they are still paying their taxes, which support our highly underfunded schools, but don't take a place as they're sending their kids elsewhere. In that sense it's a win.

Unfortunately you are thinking about this all wrong. What you are looking for is a mini utopia, where all education is equal, however this isn’t possible unless all people are equal.

The first thing that needs fixed is world hunger and poverty, these things will then allow for better education for all. Then you would need to start wealth and work distribution. To fix inequality you have to start from the bottom not the middle. Otherwise as others have said there will just be another way to ensure we all stay unequal. This cannot and will not be done in a capitalist society.

By the way I am not saying we should do the above.

Also OP you should listen to the second season of “against the rules” podcast it discusses how coaching (Or Tutoring) only benefits people who are are already good at something or rich as only they can afford or have access.

But the system would still be unfair wouldn't ,what about all the children of mumsnetter,s who go to super duper selective schools? Whilst my son isn't academic and would never have got a place ,the fact is in my town we have,nt had Grammar school,s since the 1980,s ,they system still wouldn't be fair .

@Bluntness100

Is this some form of momentum communist propaganda thing op?

No, I don’t believe private schools,private hospitals, cars or houses bigger than you need, high earners, expensive clothing, expensive food or any other such thing you can think of should be banned.

I would call my politics pretty resolutely socialist. I’m not a member of momentum. Probably wrongly but I associate them with the SWP who are a bunch of misogynists.

You can be poor and invested in your child's education and them do well. It's a combination of the child's commitment and parental support that's the most important, not what school they attend.
You can reach your potential in any school with the right attitude to learning
Are you being goady or naïve?

I'd love to hear how some of my disadvantaged students could improve their life chances with the right attitude

Seriously, if it's just the case of the right attitude then you've got the solution to decades of educational inequality.

I don't understand people defending private schools and minimising educational inequality because 'good kids will do well anywhere'. It's the most hilarious and illogical argument given that if private education didn't offer any benefits then people wouldn't spend thousands a year on it!

@HijabiVenus

But is private healthcare better? A private room instead of a ward of four. Where the doctors and nurses call you Madam or Sir. The only possible advantage is being seen sooner than the NHS, and if the NHS had more funding and better provision this would not be the issue.

Exactly this. I paid for cataract surgery purely because the NHS waiting list was so ridiculously long and the qualifying criteria to even get on the list were basically that you had to be nearly blind. My surgery exactly the same as on the NHS and carried out by the same surgeon. I paid to jump the queue and had a lengthy battle with my conscience to do it.

I strongly believe that good healthcare and education should be freely available to everyone, regardless of wealth. Those are things money shouldn’t be able to buy. Big houses and new cars are an entirely different issue and introducing them is just muddying the waters.

You won’t get many people agreeing with you though, OP. MN sees private education as a status symbol, hence the early introduction to the thread of other irrelevant status symbols.

I think education here is a draw internationally and this should be maintained. Some of this is due to access to the best. I’d bring state up a fair bit to close the gap.

Also inequality would be brought about, but this could be closed too in reality. I think my issue is be careful the good stuff isn’t lost.

@cocopops

Absolutely sick to death of threads like this. If higher earners who have worked hard to build a better life for their families and chose to spend their disposable income on school fees instead of fancy cars and multiple holidays, then why should anyone have the right to deny them that choice. And why should their children be penalised for choices their parents have made? Life and society isn’t fair- the sooner you realise that OP the better.

My mother worked hard every single day of her (short) life. What is your point? We were denied choice at every step because we were poor. It's not about the lowest common denominator, it's about improving educational opportunity for all. It's not acceptable to just say 'life's not fair'. Poor children understand this very early on.

State system would never cope.

Private schools are really good and state schools are a bit rubbish according to you so your logical conclusion is to get rid of the private schools to improve matters. Mad. Level down leftie.

We live in a 2 bedroom flat and our son goes to an independent, many other parents at his school are also not minted.

@Gurtcha

I would say it’s more about making really good standards of education accessible to everyone

No one would disagree but your criticism is misplaced. This isn’t anything to do with independent schools.

As I said, I wouldn't ban them, but I do think the fact the financial elite can go elsewhere is a factor in why schools are able to be ignored and underfunded.

If (virtually) everyone was in the state system, including the highest tax payers, politicians would have more need to deliver a return.

You would also need to abolish extra tutoring after school.
Abolish parents (many of whom may also be teachers, themselves) from giving their children extra lessons at home.
Ban interested parents from taking their children to museums and art galleries, holidays abroad, etc
You would aso have to prevent home schooling, prevent the good independent schools (Eton, etc), from moving to Ireland, etc
So, not possible, in my view.
The real aim should be to improve state education, so that no one wants to privatedly educate their children.

I was privately educated. My parents most certainly weren't wealthy, I sat entrance exams and earned a scholarship.

Should we all drive the same car, live in the same size homes, eat the same food?

Sure get rid of private schools, the children will go to state schools, then the state schools will have to find more funds from tax payers?

As it is the private sector helps state school by removing a small percentage of children, what does that matter to you?

@TorkTorkBam

Private schools are really good and state schools are a bit rubbish according to you so your logical conclusion is to get rid of the private schools to improve matters. Mad. Level down leftie.

If you read the thread, you’ll see that I feel that it’s wrong for children’s opportunities to be determined by their household income, and that the solution to this would be to level the playing fields in a way that means everyone gets a high level of education. State schools can be excellent but there’s often still a level of opportunity that is reserved for private school children - and I feel you’re kidding yourself if you think otherwise. Fair enough if you think that inequality should be upheld, but at least understand my POV before you comment.

I've been against faith schools since, as an atheist, I wasn't allowed to enrol my child at the nearest primary school, which was Catholic. So to know the Sky Wizard is to deny education to children who don't know the Sky Wizard? Flipping privilege on a stupid scale. My child went to a non-denom community school a bit further away.

But as for private schools: My tub- thumping lefty ideals say, Ban All of Them! But privately, if I could afford it, my child would be enrolled no problem. Why? Because I accept as a taxpayer I am provided with a narrow basic education but if I'm paying then I get all those lovely sports facilities, the music lessons, and all the other stuff a premium gets you that my tax cannot cover. I see it as paying for basic Sky or Sky with all the extra channels, top of the range box and broadband thrown in. And if people are willing to pay premium, then services like private education will stay.

My dd attends an excellent state school in our catchment area. We chose our home because of the school. When she started having some stress at school we spent thousands on private assessments to pin down exactly where the problem was. We were able to go to the school with a very detailed report that addressed how the school wasn’t meeting the needs of our advanced child. We now have official modifications in place (in the us where we live this is an iep or a 504) and unofficial modifications. If they had balked, we would have hired a lawyer.

I’m not even a member of the wealthy elite. Our household income is very comfortable, but paying for private school plus university is more than we can manage. Yet we can come up with the resources to make sure the school provides my child what she needs. Nothing we asked for harms any other child in the school and nothing we asked for really costs the school any money aside from the cost of the staffs time to have repeated meetings with us, but other parents might request things that do impact other kids.

Imagine all those private school parents flooding the state schools and coming in with even more resources than we have. They absolutely would use their resources to fight for the best education for their child and that would not necessarily mean an improvement for everyone.

I love these “well then surely healthcare should be free?!! Medicine should be free?! Let’s just give everyone stuff so no one suffers because of their income??” comments. Like... yes. We should do those things.

I knew it would only be a matter of time before the old trope about rich people being hard-working and wholly deserving of all of their wealth and poor people being responsible for their own poverty was brought out. Does your cleaner work hard? Do care workers not work hard? What about those who have inherited their wealth - what 'hard work' have they done to warrant their wealth? Hard work is not a ticket to wealth, and the reverse is certainly not true either.

People seem determined to blame the poor, if only to assuage their own guilty conscience.

I don’t think we should ban private schools, but I do think we should properly and fully fund ALL state schools.

I agree OP but threads like this never go down well on mumsnet with the more sharp elbowed parents on here!