To think abolishing private schools would cost the tax payer a lot of money?!

[bumblybum]

I am not against the idea at all but there's a few things I don't understand.

How do the dc currently in private schools fit into schools in areas where all the schools are already full?
Would private schools be open to foreign dc only seeing as a lot of students at the private schools are not from the U.K. and use private schools because their company often pays for their fees or would foreign dc also be forced into state schools?
What about boarding schools for forces parents? Are there enough state boarding schools?

Do grammar schools also need deconstructing as well in order for all education to be 'fair'? I live in a grammar area and you can forget buying a house in one of the school catchment areas unless you're already a lot wealthier. Is that not a similar problem? One school has 2% of pupils eligible for pupil premium for example.

Just wondering how it would work. Do state teachers want this to happen? Many move over to private schools so I suppose if many private schools shut down it would stop some choice in where to work.

Would state schools attempt to reach the standard of facilities that private schools have or would we accept that it is better that all British dc have the 'same' even if it's worse vs some having better facilities simply down to money.
Just Monday morning day dreaming about this really!

state schools would suddenly find themselves with extra cash if every politicians and company leaders kids were in state schools.

Dinoteeth plenty of politicians’ children do go to state schools so why aren’t they doing something about it?

I think the idea that more well off people attending state would change the overall system is a bit of a leap.

There are state schools that attract well off due to selection, no change is pushed because the outcomes are very good. As good as or better in some cases than private. So parents generally are happy with it as it is.

You could get more competition if you take out more from private but that just gets more extreme in efforts to access better state versions.

If many current private school kids had to move to state sector, they would need state provision of education like every other kid ( costing taxpayer)
Current private school parents, now with kids at state, would pay for their own kids’ additional tutoring and extracurriculars as needed.

of course they wouldn’t ‘give half’ to the state school their kids now attend.

whoever suggested that further up the thread is living on another planet

I'm not quite sure how people have come to the conclusion that people who spend their money on the private school fees would then donate it all to the state sector? I highly doubt that would happen. It could happen today but it isn't.
What does happen though is people who can afford tutors but not PS fees do that instead. That will probably long continue. The gap between wealthier dc and poorer dc will either be the same or even grow. Many people who pay private schools go without holidays/second cars/being sahp/experiences for their dc/paying university fees. I can see those things going up for the wealthier dc. Not state schools funding though.

bumblybum

that’s exactly what I was saying! Of course no one would donate their hard earned post tax income to the school generally. They’d pay for their own kids’ private tutors, extracurriculars. They’d enjoy spending much less than the private school fees, even taking these into account, and go on holidays more!

do the posters who think that private school parents would suddenly
give a huge portion of their post tax income to the state school also donate significantly to their state schools from their post tax income? Do they choose this and make cuts in other areas to afford to donate to the school?

because that is what many private school parents are doing.

of course they won’t decide to donate their current fees to the state school.
thier kids will instead benefit from tuition, clubs outside schools and more money into their savings account.

The gap is more likely to grow in my opinion. It isn’t the large, expensive boarding schools like Eton etc who will suffer. Their parents are more likely to be able to withstand the VAT. Those schools will continue. It’s the smaller, less expensive schools who are more likely to suffer. They are more likely to be the pupils who are forced into the state sector, whose parents are scrimping and saving to put their children through school. You’ll end up with the independent sector even more “elite” than it is already.

Schools like Eton would probably just relocate to somewhere where Private education is allowed. Channel Islands perhaps...

Why did they ever have charitable status? Was it because of the EU rules on not taxing education or is it because they do a job that the state would otherwise be obliged to do - ie educating children.

I don't think anyone is saying private school parents would donate their fees money to their new state school. But I think parents do give money to schools.

My kids school in a gentrifying area- previously money raised was 50p from cake sales etc as parents on low income. Now it's £100s spent on school fairs, donations of laptops from a parent that had 'connections' at IBM or somewhere, sponsorships from various places. It's about having more spare cash and connections. For more on this listen to the 'Nice White Parents' podcast.

Private schools were thought to be under threat during the 1970s Labour governments, and some - Eton certainly - bought land abroad in the eventuality of them being abolished.
I don’t know whether these schools still own the land.
Also, I don’t know why the 1970s Labour governments didn’t do more to abolish private education.

PixellatedPixie · Today 12:53
Why did they ever have charitable status?

Google is your friend.

I suspect tory HQ are going hard on this point on mumsnet as they think it's a vote winner. Fact is Starmer has not said anything about abolishing private school and trying to hang him on Jeremy Corbyns manifesto is ridiculous. Starmer is a centrist candidate in place because Corbyn was too socialist to win.

I'm pretty sure the same tory bots would defend the lack of Northern powerhouse or levelling up because that was the promise of DC and then BJ not RS. Rishi doesn't give a shit about the North South divide and knows the red wall is being rebuilt because they did such a fucking poor job on all their promises at the last election. They couldn't even "Get Brexit Done".

Fact is campaigning on minority issues like this isn't a vote swinger. Being part of the government running the country into the ground is what will loose RS the next election.

Are you a Labour bot from their HQ?

no Starmer hasn’t said anything about abolishing private school (unlike Corbyn).

However he has said he would get private schools to charge VAT without any cost/benefit analysis showing how the extra state places would be funded etc.

Unfortunately that says to me he’s blowing the same dog whistle and is happy to play to “let’s screw the rich” sentiments regardless of whether they actually benefit the country or not.

Why did they ever have charitable status?

Here you go @PixellatedPixie. Warning, it’s not an easy read. Like many injustices, its origins are in religion.

www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/the-charitable-status-of-elite-schools-the-origins-of-a-national-scandal

,,@MintJulia the IFS has done some work on this. IFS - fees rose 23% above inflation between 2010 and 2020 which suggests sector could absorb VAT increase.
So supposedly have the ICS....... but they are really just an independent schools lobby. I'd take the IFS over them any day.
ifs.org.uk/education-spending/schools

www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2022/11/daily-mail-private-schools-education-class-labour

I completely agree. Many private schools could be doing much more to increase access to state schools.

I went to a top boarding school and there were many parents, although not my own, who were neither interested nor supportive of their DC. In many cases it was simply a case of following social mores and getting the DC off their hands. Some wouldn't even have them home in the school holidays. My DC are non-boarding teenagers at London schools. I have seen the same type of parental behaviour in some cases at their schools and drugs are a huge problem. Practically feral DC with a real lack of support at home and parents largely absent. Support varies so much by family and is not determined by wealth. It is wrong to assume that because people don't or can't spend on private school fees that they are not interested or supportive of their DC's education. Many state school parents are very invested in their DC's education. There are also manybehavioural problems in independent schools. I am wondering if your children are still quite young.

Who’s ‘abolishing’ private schools? How would that even work, would the government make not illegal to take ££ for educating the under 18s?

Private schools are businesses. They can pretty much do as they please as businesses. Have done for centuries.

Would the state really buy the schools out of their real estate? How much would that cost? Can the state really afford the ongoing liability that old listed buildings pose?

I was at Private school where there were boarders.
I am very anti boarding for a whole variety of reasons but there were quite a few kids there who’s parents had just decided to use their money to make them someone else’s problem. I have seen it more recently at boarding schools where family members are too.
I have to say though at my DCs Private day school standards are pretty strict and the behaviour expected is generally of a high standard. It is probably the same at a lot of State schools as well but DS tells me that he and his peers have been in trouble for things he says his State educated friends (at a specific school) get away with. I suppose it’s easier to expel from Private school?

How would it save money? The state would have to pay for each and every one of those ex private school pupils (I think it's a few thousand a year schools receive for individual state pupils?) plus pay for their GCSEs - private school parents usually pay for these and it all adds up.

Personally i believe if you can afford private education and healthcare you should pay for it and ease some of the burden on public services for those that cant afford it. I dont think private schools should be allowed charity status though.

Would the state really buy the schools out of their real estate? How much would that cost? Can the state really afford the ongoing liability that old listed buildings pose?

I wondered that. Also, many of these school receive huge donations from alumnae which would dry up pretty quickly if the schools converted to state.

Some of the huge funds the schools have would still be around.

Yes, I wonder what would happen to these funds - I guess (but I could be wrong) that this would be the first time the state has tried to take funds from private schools so presumably a lot of lawyers would be very busy for a long time. Unless of course the Labour government just requisitioned them.

Would the state really buy the schools out of their real estate?

The school estate in England is currently awaiting £11.4 billion of repairs to bring it up to a merely adequate standard so I'd be a bit pissed off if they spent money buying extra buildings to house an influx of pupils caused by a political decision instead of fixing the ones they have.