To think that improving state schools needs people to pay an e.g. a state school tax?

[Theyhadsomehoneyandplentyofmoney]

What with the current hoo ha about VAT on private school and commentary about equality and privilege.. wouldn’t it make sense to vastly improve state schools? And in order to do so obviously the government needs more cash.

Isn’t it reasonable therefore to ask anyone using state schools, to pay a bit of tax for that, in order to improve all said schools from their (often) current dire state?

We already do
generally I subscribe to higher tax for better state provided services
However if only those using it, pay it its not really a tax...its a charge.
And this would only increase the disparity.

No, funding should be increased and paid for out of progressive taxation.

Completely agree OP. Be interesting to see how state school parents would react if they had 6 weeks notice to cough up 20% VAT on the £7k the state pays for their DC's education. Multiplied by however many DC they have. Don't expect they'd be quite so enthusiastic on taxing children's education then.

The schools here ask parents to set up a direct debit to pay towards their funds.

Everyone benefits from an educated population.

Well we all pay tax. Clearly, it’s not working for many state schools. Lack of resources , teachers, facilities, sport, music, art.

Surely more cash will help them - other countries pay more tax, and have less reliance on state benefits, possibly why they have better offerings. Their governments have more cash to spend. We don’t, so why not change that? It wouldn’t be a lot pp.

My child is out of school already (it’s a state school) but in general our family wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes to get not only schools but also NHS better and more functional. The main caveat is that the taxing should be fair so it should affect those who really rich, not a single mum who worked her arse off and got to the 57k salary or someone getting 65k with the other parent at home struggling to home school 2 out of 3 children with additional needs who didn’t get school places (it’s not me, it’s an example from friends situations)
Just a thought.

That sounds like a really good idea, I had no idea that we had a state school system built on fresh air.

Wow so judgemental.

I'd rather parents didn't have to pay £100s on an ugly, uncomfortable and not actually suitable for the average school day uniform and then maybe they could use that money towards actually helping their child's education and the school in general.

Oh god the private school parents are really embarrassing themselves on here.

I'm borderline ready to believe some of them are actually anti-private schools and doing this to make private school parents look bad.

I'm very pro this policy but would have empathy for some families affected on a human level, but the posts on MN have completely drained all that.

And you’re adding to this debate how?

I would deeply mind paying more taxation for state schools when a huge aspect of the problem isn’t simply lack of money but poor parental attitudes to education, atrocious pupil behaviour (which too many parents condone or refuse to address) and teaching staff struggling to cope with a range of other issues which aren’t simply going to be plugged with dosh.

What on earth are you talking about?

Many parents would pull their children out and home educate. Some of these children would not be educated as a result. State education benefits society as a whole.

👏🏾👏🏾

That could be a good option. Remove uniform costs but give the cash to the gvt to improve state schools offerings instead. That would raise a lot, each year.

I think the government needs to stop mismanaging the money they do have got a start and then see where we are. You can’t keep taxing people more and then wasting it.

Did you read what you quoted?
I agree with higher taxes....for those that can afford them. You are clearly angling for just those that use schools to pay.
And obviously more cash would help state schools
School budgets aren't decimated just because of low taxes (directly) but because of budget allocation.
How does reliance on state benefits have anything to do with your proposal?

I know plenty of people who "worked their arse off" to get to high salaries.

In fact I suspect a good proportion of people on high salaries do.

Not sure that a taxation system based on how hard you actually work is possible to implement. Possibly through some sort of extra box on the assessment form that you tick "I worked my arse off this year" and they give you a deduction.

What’s your answer?

So where does this end? Shall we do it with hospitals as well?

The NHS could always use more cash.

There is money already they just need to redistribute it. If they tax the billionaire properly its affordable

This.