Closing all private schools would benefit state schools

[Nimbostratus100]

I've been thinking about that the argument of state schools not being able to accommodate another 7 % of pupils. It really doesn't add up

For one thing, state schools are frequently in a situation of having to accommodate 7% more pupils and they just stretch and cope. It wouldn't be any different.

And each pupil brings in more government funding.

And if all the private schools closed, we would have a fresh pool of 14% more teachers! More funding for teachers in state schools, and a massive increase in numbers of teacher applying!

Given that many vacancies are currently attracting zero applicants, this could be a total game changer!

Of course some teachers in private schools would not apply to state schools, an would just leave teaching instead, and some would not be qualified to teach in state schools.

But then, we wouldn't be taking in 7% more pupils, either, given how many private school pupils are overseas, or have parents overseas, and would just move to board in another country.

So say 5% more pupils, and maybe 12% more teachers! fantastic! even more so when you consider the resources potentially freed up - many of our best resources were donated 10 or 20 years ago by private schools, they might have untold wealth in the form of sports equipment, science equipment, technology, test books, musical instruments! working photocopiers!!! school furniture!

And potentially, even school premises

If average annual state school funding is £7.2k per child, and there are 620k children in the private system, we’re talking about an additional cost to the taxpayer of £4.2bn per year (before taking account of the extra investment required in land and facilities).

Has OP said where the £4.2bn per year will come from? I can’t see it.

I wasn’t dealing with the issue of funding but objecting to the fundamental point you made that pupils with SEND and from inadequate parenting backgrounds don’t benefit from better funding, but other children do. Which is patently bollocks. As to where that money comes from, there always seems to be enough for dodgy PPI contracts…

@Atnilpoe sadly they will never spend the dodgy PPI contract money on education

It’s envy / jealousy.

People saying that they are making the right choice for their children and wanting the best for their children by sending them to private school but not appreciating the huge privilege they have in being able to make that choice is what I find frustrating.

It's Magic Government Money, it just appears.

Around here, if the private school in our town (one of the oldest in the country) closed then the single state secondary school would immediately be unable to provide around 20% of its lessons, because it would no longer have access to the facilities required. It would also have to cope with an additional 50 pupils per year, because those are scholarships funded by the private school.

The government would not be able to appropriate the assets of the private school, because it owns so much property in the town that it's a completely self-contained entity (which actually predates the UK government's existence), and most of its buildings are protected/listed to the point where it would cost the state too much to refit and maintain them. It would simply stop being a school, the land would be sold off for development and it would become a property and leisure company.

Maybe 10% of the teachers might move across, the others would simply go back to the careers they had before or retire rather than take an unrealistic pay cut.

The result of all of this is that the state school would quickly become even less able to provide an education than it is already, and would be replaced (again, for the third time in 35 years) at ridiculous cost to the taxpayer while completely failing the children in the area during the transition.

Yep, that would be a major win.

@Sherrystrull Why do you care what people say or whether they appreciate their huge privilege? Why does it frustrate you? Does the fact of people living in nice houses or having lovely holidays frustrate you?

Rich people having nice things seems to be fine, since they've earned it, been given it, etc whatever, but those with the funds to educate their children privately seems to give people the irrational rage. Why should anyone be forced to behave any way such as being grateful or appreciative, just to make those people using the state system feel better?

The point is that people who educate their children privately while paying taxes are directly providing funds to my state educated children through their taxes. If they started using the system as well, it would be even more inadequate than it currently is.

I'm grateful to them. I don't see why they have to be grateful, everyone hates them by the look of it.

The people I would be wary of are those people with huge amounts ot money who do use the state system in the form of grammar school etc. They ought to be using private if they can afford to

I don't like it when people say that they chose private school as making the best choice for their children but don't recognise that without having money that isn't a choice to make.

People sending children to state school isn't because they don't want the best for their children or don't care about their education, it's often about not having that choice to make.

DH and I work very hard indeed. We can't afford the choice to send ours to private school. I don't begrudge anyone who does but it's a privilege to have that choice.

Do you also find it frustrating that people have huge privilege if they can afford to live in the catchment of good schools? Because for us, private school was cheaper than moving house.

@Sherrystrull I understand that you don't have the choice, I don't either, and neither do most people. I get that when people say this about choice they might not realise you would choose that if you could, which makes the comment insensitive.

But them have the money to choose private and opting out of state while still paying tax directly improves YOUR children's education. If they had chosen or been forced to use state then the system would need to provide for them too, with the fixed resources it currently has.

Why would you want to create a situation where they can't afford it either, or where the option doesn't even exist? It simply makes no logical sense.

They've got something nice that you can't have, so we should destroy that thing so everyone can suffer?

Also you obviously do begrudge it, very much indeed

Far better than closing all private schools would be to require them to provide 10% of their places as scholarships. It lightens the load on the state schools in the area (which often can't really accommodate their top pupils anyway) and provides a nominally better education for the children who get them, all at zero cost to the taxpayer.

@ntmdino They do this already. It is a requirement of charitable status to provide bursaries to those who cannot afford the fees. Very surprised you don't know this

I don't begrudge anything. I also haven't said I don't agree with private education.

I just take against any parent saying they are making the best choices for their children by choosing private WITHOUT recognising the privilege in being able to make that choice when many others can't.

Bursaries are not the same - they're means-tested, and rarely cover the entirety of the fees. When I say "means-tested", I mean that on fees of £11k per term, they'll get something on the order of 75% remission if the family income is £50k or less (this is a common number), and these places tend to be available to around five pupils per year.

Based on that, and two parents earning £25k each and taking home £42k between them, they'd still have to find £10,500 yearly to pay the remaining fees (25% of their entire take-home income).

That's not remotely enough - not enough places, and not enough fee remission. The legal requirements are also very vague - they only have to prove that they provide "public benefit". I'm talking about mandating 10% of places be entirely covered by the school, across the board, no exceptions.

@ntmdino OK in that case I would support your suggestion, especially over dismantling the system in favour of petty envy and things that make no logical sense

”Public benefit” can never be prescriptive for charities. That is what all the case law mandates. For some schools, it may be appropriate to provide bursaries, for others, it may be far better to partner widely with state schools (for example, Eton etc because they have tons of cash).

The Supreme Court case of Nuffield Health vs LB of Merton is important. https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2021-0138-judgment.pdf

A whole lot of people with their own opinions of justice/fairness are just not relevant. That includes our politicians of whatever colour. Thank God for the actual law sitting behind all of this.

@Sherrystrull I still don't see why it bothers you in the slightest whether or not people recognise their own privilege. It won't stop them having it. It won't provide you with any. You can't control how other people behave and on this basis you might have a better life if you didn't care whether privileged people realise how lucky they are and then make it clear to you that they do or don't.

Also they are only making the best choice according to them. They might be wrong

@Intergalacticcatharsis from your link, this is key: what people think 'charity' is or ought to be

"As has been noted in several cases, charity is a legal term of art the definition of which, including the public benefit requirement, does not always accord with the general public understanding of what is and what is not charitable: see, eg, Inland Revenue Comrs v McMullen [1981] AC 1, 15 per Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone LC."

Why do you think people who send their kids private don't appreciate they are privileged to be able to do so? What is your evidence?

I've got a lovely life thanks.

Other people's choices don't affect me.

I prefer to be humble though and recognise my privileges. It helps me empathise with others.

It's great if people do recognise their privilege. I'm specifically talking about those that don't. I have come across some in personal life, professional life and by reading threads on here.

That's true enough, and I wouldn't support changing the law to apply to all charities. However, independent schools are a very specific class, and so it would make sense to me to change the specifics applying to them.

I say this as someone who benefited greatly from just such a thing - I was a scholarship kid at our local private school, back when scholarships covered 25% of their places (the LEA funded much of this, because it was cheaper than building and maintaining another school in the area). I wouldn't be anywhere near as successful as I am now without it - I'm not talking about the Old Girl/Old Boy network (I always found that useless), but rather the environment itself; I simply wouldn't have had a chance in our state school, and I wish more people had access to that educational environment.

“I simply wouldn't have had a chance in our state school, and I wish more people had access to that educational environment.”

All higher rate tax payers can gift aid to private schools and it is inheritance tax efficient to do so. However, placing an obligation on a small private school to have to have X % of bursaries is unreasonable. The trustees will decide what they can and cannot do. The rich schools tap into their alumni and others to raise the donations for bursaries etc

What the Government can do is create more of a culture of people giving to their local state schools in a similar way, in their wills/as donations and make sure if schools are given the cash, that they then do not underfund them. Look at Dyson trying to give money for a state of the art science block. There is the will to do this kind of thing. This is what they should be encouraging.

The problem with that is it will create even more of a geographical divide - more affluent areas will end up with state schools rivalling the independents, and poorer inner-city areas will be stuck with the bare-bones funding that the government will keep reducing year-on-year as the donations flood in; on average the picture will look rosy, so the government can make ludicrous claims of "no child left behind" in headlines, but the postcode lottery will sink any prospect of social mobility.

I don't disagree that your idea would be fantastic, but it relies on a utopia that is incompatible with the real world.