To be gleeful that most of us were right

[Wranglestar]

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/adding-vat-to-private-school-fees-has-had-no-obvious-impact-on-state-sector-applications-390546/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2ATdaVlNkJsbtC-KizuW4Fw41obnpvezxnFv4IAFwzJPHXmU90Awr5eqAaem9tMIsn9I0vHSC4jrdYONIA#0rd9makyd4264nstc4us9j77yk5kaoswtLondon Economic

And that private schools has had no impact on state school places. The rich have simply - paid more. Excellent news!

Well, for a start, there's state provision of schooling but no state provision of university education. So people choosing private education are paying for something they don't need to. For university, there is no alternative. Hence, the choice to pay for your child to go to private school is a luxury but the decision to go to university is not. SEN parents excepted.

But really you're being disingenuous. You know what the difference is between school and university; everyone does. To try and argue that there's no difference is just sophistry as you try and make some clever point that is never going to go anywhere

It’s not ‘more equality’ it’s a greater gap between state and private.

Also private schools in Ireland and France are offering good deals on weekly boarding which some parents will take up. There is no way my child would go to a failing state school I would find a way to ensure she had any advantage I could give her.

I don’t have kids at private school, but this thread proves that for many, they supported the VAT policy out of malice (and envy) rather than from an intelligent economic perspective.

Not just the rich but also the less than rich ones. It's not an easy decision to take a child out of school. We really struggle with the Increased tuition fees (VAT on top of the crazy 10% annual hike). I would love to take out my child but I think it would be too hard on her. Not because she is too good for state but because it's hard to change school once you are halfway through primary. She is settled now where she is. She struggled in her local state school (not the fault of the school. She just couldn't cope with so many kids) and now after being used to the smaller classes would struggle even more. Besides we wouldn't get a place at the same lovely school. I have asked and they said they have a long waiting list already. As does the other good school that would be our second option. Most parents have also had no time to plan. Labour came into power last summer and dd's school have already increased the fees by 20% (on top of the 10% last year). It's so much easier to start in reception than half way through pr8mary or secondary. I would have appreciated if there could have been a moratorium for kids already in private school or at least a grace period of a couple of years. Or if they just got rid of private schools and stopped rhr postcode lottery that is state schools.

If more children go to state schoolsnthen there may be a bigger gap between the rich and the rest of us, but there will be fewer rich. If the gap is wider but there are fewer people in the elite, is that a good thing?

I firmly believe that economic inequality is hugely damaging for society; we do better if we genuinely are all in the same boat

How will there be fewer rich people if more people use state schools?

Your alternatives are not exhaustive. Someone could support the policy for ethical or moral reasons (to do with equity perhaps?) and neither out of malice nor from an (intelligent or otherwise) economic perspective. No?

So, parents are unable to afford private schools...

They send their children to Anytown Comp.

Anytown Comp has big classes and is struggling to recruit science and maths teachers.

Percentage of parents (the former private school parents and the well off state parents) hire tutors in maths and science for their children.

The tutored children now do better in the end of year exams and are all in the top sets.

Little Johnny whose parents aren't aware or can't afford the extra help outside class is reliant on the school's teaching (or lack of) and is now bumped down to the bottom sets and feels a failure. Chances are that bottom set is more disruptive and Little Johnny, who would have done really well with that extra tuition or an actual teacher starts to disengage.

Have you improved equality? Have you improved Johnny's life chances and opportunities?

What I think will happen (as a Private school parent)
The very rich won't care so Private Schools will become more elitist
Those who can manage the fees if they are careful will stop spending money on other things, this may impact local economies
Those who can no longer afford the fees will move house and/or find other ways to access good State school, possibly pushing out poorer families
Some SEN kids who were Private before may now be in mainstream, this will impact their learning and possibly that of their peers
Wealthier parents will throw resources at getting their child into Grammar, again pushing out poorer families.

So, whatever your idealogical view on it there will actually be no benefit to any children whatever type of school they attend. This was the reason Labour gave for doing it so at the very least they lied and/or used faulty data.
If I thought that the money rasied would benefit State schools directly I would be happy to pay it but firstly I don't think any money will be and secondly it won't improve any childs life or education.

Or ...

Parents are unable to afford private schools...

They send their children to Anytown Comp.

Anytown Comp has big classes and is struggling to recruit science and maths teachers.

The parents of children who once could afford private schools join with others and agitate for adequate funding to facilitate smaller classes and proper science and maths teachers.

Little Johnny does really well with smaller classes and better teachers. (As does Little Joanie and others.)

Have we improved equality? Have we improved Johnny's (and Joanie's) life chances and opportunities?

[Of course there's more to it than that. Much more. But that goes for the original too.]

So the percentage of private school parents who are forced to move to state have some magic power that those of us in state schools don't currently possess?

Do you think that parents of SEN children in state schools just sit there twiddling their thumbs and doing nothing?

I await the arrival of our saviours...

Are we saying that only wealthy parents are able to make a positive contribution to State schools then?
I agree if we are talking donations but in terms of influence a Head or Governors will not be able to act just because a Doctor told them to anymore than a binman telling them to.

Can you imagine an LEA saying "oh look, a group of wealthy parents want to have smaller classes, lets use this money that we just sat on when poor people asked for it"

No, I don't think that.

In the end, the only power any of us has, magic or otherwise, is our vote ... and possibly a capacity to persuade others how to use it. This might be depressing in some ways, but ultimately it's probably for the best.

Ah so we now need to wait till a new government is persuaded. By which time our kids have left the school system.

And that is why those who can will pay for the educational support that the state doesn't provide.

So again, how does forcing private school parents into state improve equality?

I went to a meeting at our school last night about VAT and the proposed removal of discretionary rate relief plus NI rises. I won't go into details but a few takeaways;

• 41% of pupils have SEN. (I thought it was around 30% because that is what the ISI report from a few years back said- apparently there was a big rise during and post covid).
• 17% of pupils have 90% bursary
• A further 15% of pupils have 50% bursary or more
• There was a significant cohort of students placed at the school via the local authority because they are Looked After Children and in permanent foster care etc.
• Over 300 staff drawn from the local community including peripatetic staff like music teachers, dance teachers, people running the sports clubs etc.
• The school is quite rural and has a policy of sourcing food, trades, etc from the local community - for example they aim to source food from local farms not TESCO, including meat, vegetables, eggs and dairy etc
• The bursaries are given primarily for familial family finance reasons - sports and arts- military- Ukrainian refugees who also live in the boarding school

There was alot more but I'll leave it there for now. The school has already seen on average of 2 existing students per year level withdrawn due to VAT - they admit this is largely because they waived the term's notice re fees paying and so people jumped early.

I don't think it would be to anyone's benefit if all that was destroyed tbh. Enormous loss to the community and the students themselves and a massive strain on the local schools - part of the reason our school has such a high cohort of SEN pupils is because the surrounding local schools were simply not able to accommodate some of these needs.

@FourSeasonsLobelia
But its Ok because the parents of all those DC who leave Private can now wave their magic wands and improve State schools apparently because Parents who can't afford Private don't actually care enough to bother according to some people on here.

Apparently yes.

I feel - quite helpless- in the face of poor fiscal policies driven by ideological spite. I think under the Tories the UK was in decline. Under the Labour party it's in mismanaged decline that will see us off the precipice. And people are still too dumb to see the logical consequences of what happens if the educated, aspirational and solvent net contributers say 'Nah- fuck this for a laugh, I'm off'. I wouldn't be gleeful about that.

As I said upthread if I believed that the policy would improve the lives of ANY children I would be behind it but it won't, its pure spite
As evidenced by the glee shown by OP and others.
DH has some friends who live in Russia and one of them said that under The Soviets everything was shit - but at least it was shit for everyone!

Yes indeed. There was a council member (a few actually- local council) who attended the meeting last night. When asked if they thought every bit of education in the UK should be equally rubbish his reply was 'everything should be equal even if it means equally bad'. The removal of discretionary rate relief according to him would mean that 100 charities in a 30 mile radius would get an additional £2 k each year to 'provide food to families'. It was a nonsense. Not least because our LA is one of the few who operate on a surplus** and also because there are not 100 local charities in existence anyway- certainly not 100 who provide food to families.

** I have not actually checked this. It was what a counter responder said.

It's going to be a long struggle. The British education system has had a big hand in warping the British state and causing the unequal mess we have now. And it is also itself a part of the unequal mess.

We'd be better off without private education, both in educational terms and in regard to wider society. The '45 government dodged the issue when it should have been faced, thanks to Clem. (Though he did a lot of other good stuff of course; still by far the best British PM.) Similarly successive Labour governments.

Now it's much harder, of course. The posts on here point this up. But it's still worth attempting. VAT on private school fees is a necessary part of the battle for societal equity. It's a small enough step but I for one am glad to see it.

(Oh, and @FourSeasonsLobelia, I'm one of your 'educated, aspirational and solvent net contributors' (though I spell that latter word differently from you). "Fuck this for a laugh" indeed: but I'm planning to stick around for a bit and try to help fix things. My aspirations have ethical content, you see, I suppose partly because I wasn't privately educated.)

Well- I'm not from the UK. I thought I would die in this country. Now not so sure. I just feel punished and hated at every turn lately.

Please don't think that people who disagree with you hate you. Stay! You're welcome.

Children are not a sodding social engineering experiment.

When I read comments like this I don't blame any parent who decides to opt out - whether of state supply or the UK.

And how does the 'long struggle' help MY child right now? I can't hibernate her until there are tiny classes and 1:1 SEN support can I?

I reckon the vast majority of parents would take the same line.