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!

This is already what has hapenned in our area. We have am excellent primary in our fairly affluent village. The centre of the village is expensive, housing cheaper on the edges, and there is a significant amount of social housing there too. There has been an influx of families into the area since school rated outstanding, and less choosing to start in private due to combination of fee increases and overall cost of living increase.
For the first time in about 15 years (according to the head), they are not able to offer places to many children in the cheaper/social housing area, the only ones who are getting in are those with siblings already in the school, and all places taken by families closer to school. The other families are now allocated places in a poorly performing primary in the next village, about 4 miles away. Many dont drive, buses are once an hour and there is a lot of concern around costs of taking bus every day, time it takes. That school doesn't have wrap around care, so some parents on lower wage jobs are going to have to quit. The long term impact will be significant, from poorer educational opportunities to greater poverty, parental mental health deterioration. People seem to think that the negative impact of this policy is only felt by the rich, when the impact is nuch wider spread, often impacting more vunerable families the most.

Well- that;s kind. I've been very low and despairing lately and do have options, which is what I really mean. DH and I talked last night and our SEN child will hopefully be finished school in 3 years. We will do everything we can to keep him where he is now but after that-well, we just don't see our future here in the UK anymore. We could go back to my home country which DH is more enthusiastic about than I am - I see this will limit my Dcs even more as it is Very Far Away. But we do have options. DH has a right to citizenship of another EU country thanks to parentage.

You know, I love the UK. I loved it. But there is just so much envy and a race to the bottom. Maybe everywhere else is the same- especially now when the world as a whole is in a crisis. TBH I don't think anyone in the UK is having a good time of it right now.

I'm not sure about opting out, though I do see how my own experience as a parent - lucky enough never to feel I needed to - might be influencing me in that.

Current problems with support for SEN children certainly are deplorable. Inasmuch as I can, I sympathise. I'm not sure what an instant solution for such problems might be, but I would support any suggested realistic proposal.

Meanwhile, and possibly for the longer term, we need to get rid of the dreadful system of education which has effectively instigated such difficulties. Otherwise they will just continue.

Taxing fees just a small step in the long haul of this necessary task. "Social engineering"? You might see all - good and bad - governance as that. But the longstanding experiment of encouraging educational apartheid in the particularly English way which isolates governors from governed has certainly failed.

Would those who supported it out of genuine ethical or moral reasons be as ‘gleeful’ as the OP is?

Possibly.

You can be happy - gleeful even - to see something good come about. Or something bad not happen. Why not?

In which case surely the best solution would be to look at what a lot of other countries do and provide some kind of voucher for education that parents can take to the school of their choice and either go with the free state offer or top up for private or specialist schools.

Widen participation in private provision to more people.

That way you create jobs - directly and indirectly - you give parents choices and you have a smaller pool of children that the government are 100% funding.

Attempting to make everyone participate in The Great State Education Offer just leads to issues where inequality increases whether that is due to postcode/house price effects, or tutoring, or parents increasingly opting for affordable alternative provision such as home education (which then removes a parent from the work force as they are being supervisors and child care and discriminates against families that cannot have a parent at home).

I think of we the people funding children's education, rather than 'the government' ... that's just a way of saying. (Though it might have consequences: I'm happy to pay tax to fund other people's children's education. Tax is, in this as well as other public goods, just the price of civilisation.)

Be that as it may. The 'vouchers' idea for schools has been around a while. Rhodes Boyson, one of Thatcher's acolytes, proposed it way back in 70's, early 80's. But in the end Keith Joseph didn't like it so it died mid-80s. (Milton Friedman was on board, specifically, too.) Thatcher was disappointed.

The point of it, back then, was as an instrument of marketisation - hence Friedman, Boyson, Thatcher. The only way of allocating scarce resources, they all thought, was to create a market in it. Buy it, sell it. (Blair and his crew thought that, more or less, too - hence, well, lots of what Tony and Mandy and co. got up to. They also did some good things, Sure Start for instance; only tangentially marketised.)

Personally I think there are better ways to structure educational provision than by buying and selling. Some goods are not good to offer for sale. (There's a decent book on this line by Michael Sandel, What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets; I recommend it.)

One of the reasons people liked the vouchers idea back in the 80s was that it could be used to save the great public schools - Eton, Harrow, Winchester etc. from the depredations of evil socialists who saw them as pernicious. As one of those evil people, I was against education vouchers back then and remain so.

But anyway, it would take as long to introduce a voucher scheme as to restructure as a national education system. What to do for SEN kids now, meanwhile?

What good will come from this policy do you think?
Do you genuinely believe it will improve State schools?

What to do for SEN kids now, meanwhile?

Well indeed, and the government plans to stop parents appealing and to go for more 'inclusion' don't exactly fill me with hope that they actually understand what it is like at the coal face.

I think it good in that it's a step on the way to getting rid of the educational apartheid in Britain (particularly England) that is so deleterious to the public weal.

In the short run, it will probably make little or no improvement to state schools, nor particularly harm private schools. Still, though, to me it looks like a good thing in its move to greater social equity, however small (tiny!) that move.

How will it improve social equity when parents who move their children to state schools will simply use the money they save on school fees to buy all kinds of other educational privileges to ensure their child gets and stays ahead?

Social equity does not work if it makes everyone equally worse off rather than equally better off. In the pursuit of greater equity, if you sacrifice achievement, ability and personal choice, it is a one way ticket downhill to national poverty. We have plenty of live examples of this kind of political and social nightmare (North Korea, Cuba).

And if you want to make everyone equally better off, you need very full coffers for that, which we are very very far from in this country.

It will only serve to widen the gap. Surely you can understand this?

Schools are dropping bursary kids like flies. Those from poorer backgrounds aren't able to attend.

There's going to be no extra money in schools as a direct result of this There'll be more SEn/EHCP pupils with too little funding, not enough staff in mainstream schools...

Absolutely!
The loss of bursaries, and also more children competing for grammar places rather pay the higher private fees, meaning less children from lower income families able to access grammer, so widening the social divide further.

So you believe it will raise standards in State schools?

No one actually believes that, this is an ideological crusade rather than a practical meaningful improvement to state education, which has in real terms, had funding cut since Labour came in, due to the teachers (well deserved) pay rise, NI increase, cuts to local SEN budgets and non funded push for inclusion.

I never believed in private schools, I got a fully funded place when I was 11 but declined to go as I didn't agree with it. Grandparents offered to pay for our girls to go but we politely declined, but the deterioration is very reluctantly pushing me towards re thinking this decision.

Some people Do seem to believe it though, or claim to to hide the chip on their shoulder.
The real reason is so Labour can claim to be doing something about Education while doing nothing about Education. Its an easy shot at an easy target.
And in case anyone thinks I am a Tory (which is what often happens when anyone criticises Labour) I haven't voted for them since Brexit

I guarantee that those who wish to abolish private schools have no idea how much of a vital haven they prove to be to those with mild autism. To be able to learn in a calm, controlled environment is such a godsend. So many state schools are sadly no longer fit for purpose.

So, you think there shouldn't be fee paying schools under any circumstances?

Gleeful? Says way more about you than the people paying. And what it says is really not very flattering.

I think that is a rather disingenuous interpretation of what the OP meant.

@arbo it’s just going to make the gap wider

These are all papers on poverty and social deprivation within single parent families. They’re not studies showing that having one parent in the house affects children negatively. To be honest, I’m sick of people equating single parent families to being poor. It’s lazy and judgemental.

Have you comprehended nothing? Jealousy? Of a system I fundamentally disagree with and want to see dismantled?

Yes, if you read them it says that research shows that, on average, single parent families are more prone to social deprivation, hence poorer outcomes for their children.

I am not saying that this is always the case or even that I agree. It’s not judgemental, just the researched facts in these articles. There may well be more research that disproves this. I am simply providing you with links to the research you asked for.