AIBU in thinking that tax-payers shouldn't fund private schools?

[larks35]

Several private schools in my area are going for Academy status, which will bring them public money, while they can still continue to be selective and charge parents for their child's education.

This is an absolute travesty IMO. I always hated the Academy idea, but the Labour government thought it would help out schools in deprived areas. Now, the Tory/Lib govt. are actively encouraging private schools to take up the status and therefore, those of us who cannot afford to send our kids to the lovely private school up the road are contributing to their funding. Grrrr, it is pissing me off.

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/09/swedish-style-schools-wont-raise-standards

The man who runs the Swedish Academy system thinks it's rubbish, why are we going to copy them? Are we lemmings or what?

In other words, you agree that giving the schools too much freedom is bad?

By introducing this system, we are ignoring all evidence to the contrary. All of it. It's an emotional vote winner for anxious parents with no real justification or benefit for society at large.

"It's an emotional vote winner for anxious parents with no real justification or benefit for society at large."

Sums up most of the highly publicised parts of Education policy for the last - ooh forever.

Faith schools, more schools aimed at particular social groups, more devision, more inequality are all bad.

Whether this is what the Academies system results in remains to be seen and depends on the implementation of the regulatory regime.

It doesn't remain to be seen. We have real evidence, from the real world already.

People are willfully ignoring it. Hearts ruling heads as usual.

The Gateshead school has been inspected, and OFSTED are ok with it. If that is the case and they ARE teaching creationism, and are in fact a Faith school in disguise then that is a failure of regulation.

"Measures brought in to help the poorest kids or those from disadvantaged backgrounds have now been hijacked by middle-class parents who can't quite afford private school, meaning that bright kids who are disadvantaged now stand no chance."

What an incredibly odd comment.

What are we supposed to do with bright children from the average home? We don't want them doing well now, do we?

It's not in disguise.

It is a faith school.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1872331.stm

Sakura - apologies if I misrepresented your original post. You say that some "hog resources" but if you are referring to private schools then these are if you like a "purchasable commodity", not a resource. In the same way that those can afford it buy big TVs or houses or whatever, those that can afford it buy smaller class sizes, and in some cases (but certainly not all) better facilities. This is how it works in a capitalist society. As I said in my previous post, I am the product of a free education and proof (along with many of my friends)that you can compete at all levels with such an education and are not disadvantaged if you as an individual make the most of what you have. As far as doing the best for our own children at the expense of others I cannot see for the life of me what the alternative is. Show me one parent who has declined a place at a top school so it can go to some more "deserving" child. - sorry, have to go, newly mobile DS about to wreck the living room!

www.emmanuelctc.org.uk/emmanuelcollege/curriculum/religious_studies.php

First line of the curriculum.

"God as Creator and Sovereign"

Anyway, I apologise for being so angry, but this is a subject I feel very, very strongly about.

I think it is 50% of state school parents would send children to fee paying schools if they had the money so most are not against picking good schools for their children.

Most parents want choice and most of us if we're natural want to do best for our children not those next door which is why we tend to make sure ours do their homework and eat well rather than spending the evenings 2 doors down doing that for someone else. This is how humans are and whilst we may well volunteer and do other worthy things it is right we want to ensure the best for our own not the chidlren of others.

I don't think there was a hey day where state school parents had uniformally good schools everywhere. 40 years ago when I was little when most counties abolished grammar schools and moved to comps it was thought that would be fairer but fewer state school pupils get to good universities now than then because instead state schools got as a whole worse even if the worst got better and the best grammars became worse comps. Mediocrity ruled and of coruse parents don't want uniformity and mediocrity. They want their little Johnny in the best state school aroun din rural bucks or Kent not in my local comp 5 minutes from my door with 32% A- C in GCSE and that's a massive improvement on the year before.

Xenia - I don't agree we want choice. We want excellence. Choice between good and less-good is not a choice. The whole rhetoric of choice in state education is a con-job.

We do want the best for out children - but we also (should) want the best for everyone elses - as they will make up the society in which your children will exist.

"Most parents want choice and most of us if we're natural want to do best for our children not those next door which is why we tend to make sure ours do their homework and eat well rather than spending the evenings 2 doors down doing that for someone else."

I actually want to do what's best for society. That was my children do well and so do other people's.

Can't bear the "Look out for Number One" attitude

Your childern don't do well unless others do worse. Upwards mobility brings with it downwards for others. It is how the world works. Communist China didn't work.

Parents do like choice - some want church schools. Some want summerhill type - no lessons if chidlren dont' want it. Others want music all day long Purcell school type. Others want traditional schooling like my daughter got at North London Collegiate. Others want thick children with the right contacts and accent in some boarding place. Others want free and easy Montessori or Steiner and others latin at 3. May be we are saying the state should just provide one type of school only and if you want something else pay or teach the chidlren yourself of course, no religoin in schools no differences between state schools. That is one view and I'd be happier without state schools and just a £5k a year voucher we could all top up.

"Your childern don't do well unless others do worse"

Eh? What a bizarre statement!

Xenia - "Your children don't do well unless others do worse" - this is true in the very limited sense of competition for particular university places, jobs, opportunities etc. But living in a society made up of poorly educated, underemployed people will impoverish them compared to living in a society where everyone is well educated and has opportunities they can pursue. That's not communism, it's raising the base of opportunity.

And I mean financially, not just in some touchy feely way. A better educated country should attract more investment from overseas, so should be wealthier.

The state system is truly unfair. If you can afford a house in the right catchment area you can get a fantastic education for free. Take Waldegrave School for Girls in Teddington, or Christs in Richmond, brilliant schools, state schools but entrance by catchment and if you can afford the catchment you are lucky (and very very well off). In the same borough 3 failing school are becoming academies where the emphasis is on pupil choice and pupil self sufiency. This is in areas of social deprivation and high truency. I would like to see those kids given the places at Christs or Waldegrave, or Tiffin over the bridge for that matter.

Take Tiffin - one of the best schools in the UK, state school. Can the bright child from the local council estate get in... only if their parents know how to push them through and then you have to do battle with the vast numbers of koreans who buy in the borough early enough to get their kids through as Tiffin is more famous than Eton in Korea and we are all bloody paying for it.

I work in education and what I see day in day out makes me sick. Those that really really need it can't get it so surely any valid change has to be good.

God knows billions have been pumped in and it has got worse.

Rant over!

These are state schools, I pay for them but there is no chance my children can go to them.

If someone can explain why this is fair that would be great!

At the same time can someone explain why tax payer funded faith schools are fair too.

To me these are on the same planet as private schools. Either fund the bloody lot or stop funding faith schools

Tax funded faith schools are completely wrong. Nobody can explin why they are fair - because they are not!

Considering that there will probably always be some kind of selection in education, I'm in favour of grammar schools. They select on the basis of intelligence rather than money.

No they don't. They select on social class and the educational attainment/involvement of parents.

Only to some extent, seeker. In this day and age there would certainly be ways for teachers to be aware of that and make allowances for background. Very different to the private system which is only for the wealthy.

"Equality" (haha) says further up:
"Plenty of people really sacrifice a great deal to give their kids the best opportunity they can by sending their kids to a non-state school. My parents drove a 20 year old car, never went on holiday except to stay with family (in the UK), never went out on date nights, and generally sacrificed what could have been a comfortable standard of living to put my siblings and I though school, and we weren't unusual. To think that just because someone can scrape together the money for fees doesn't mean that they are somehow super-rich."

Well , I know a lot of people who make exactly those "sacrifices" and still can't afford school fees.

And, by the way, it's "to put my siblings and ME through school." Accusative case. I only went to a state grammar school and I seem to have been taught English better than you...

I also agree that most parents don't want "choice". That's just a government buzzword which is used to justify the fluctuations in standard of provision in the system. We just want a good school, and we want it nearby, and we want it well-resourced enough for all our children.