What is the best way to have a dig at a private school parent?

[UrbanDad]

"No am I being unreasonable?" here. I am totally reasonable to have a go at an otherwise liberal mate who eschews a perfectly good state secondary school to send his DD to a private school miles away. He makes all kinds of rubbish excuses about how his DD needs nurturing, the local secondary is composed entirely of the Bash Street Kids and it doesn't have enough sporting or cultural activities. It's all a load of Horlicks and he knows it - it's just about allowing his DD (and him TBH) to mix with the "right kind of people". I cannot afford private school and even if I could or my DKs could get a scholarship I wouldn't send them there - I just think social apartheid for children is wrong and it's poison for social mobility.

He says "everyone wants the best for their kids". I agree, but my point is this - even for purely selfish reasons - I also want the best for everyone's kids (after a couple of generations I suspect I will be blood-related to quite a few of them as well) rather than to purchase a privileged status for my own. That will be poison chalice for my DKs as well - what? After all I spent on you, you can't even get a decent job? - and it inculcates them with a terrible ethos of "every man for himself" and "beggar my neighbour".

Does anyone have any other suggestions how I can humiliate, lampoon and pour scorn upon him for being a sell-out, please?

Well Hercule, stop banging your head and direct your objections and criticisms towards the politicians who can make the changes you want rather than at parents who are merely exercising freedom of choice.

Hercule - I feel your pain. It's strange isn't it? My parents mucked in with PTA, Governors, the Round Table, Parish Council, volunteer groups, WI, Scouts, Guides, meals on wheels - all in the name of "nothing for myself if not also for others". I feel like this country is lurching violently to the right and people are actually OK about the rich purchasing themselves an entrenched position of entitlement, the living of parallel lives with separate schools, universities, "gated living" and squealing if anyone dares question their right to do so. Thank goodness for .

Aren't all bursaries really a form of poaching?

I don't know if it can really be considered 'poaching'. Private Schools don't go finding out who the brightest local kids are and the offer them bursaries to entice them. What usually happens is the parents take an interest in a local private school and research what can possibly be offered in terms of bursaries and the make an application for their child to sit the entrance exam and apply for a bursary. The parents are the ones doing all the research and applications. That doesn't really fit my idea of poaching.

Again, maybe they are different where I live - I have been told that they are offered the chance to sit a test for a bursary in p7 in my local, state school, to attend a local, private school. That is going out and looking. Same with my earlier example re rugby - it's not the parents coming up with the idea all by themselves, the top players are being approached.

I agree with all that in your last post, OP.

I still don't agree with ridiculing a friend on their choice of school, however.

Iggi999 it obviously works differently in your area because nothing like that happens where I live. The private schools local to me all have excellent reputations and receive far more bursary applications every year than they can provide funding for, so they have no need to go out looking for children to sit their exams. They do advertise in the local press but only in the same supplements as the state schools (which also don't need to advertise as they are all fully subscribed).

No government has abolished private schools because every government knows it can't afford to educate all those currently privately educated pupils. That's the truth of it.
You may not like that I can afford to drive a porsche whereas the bloke down the road has to get the bus, you may not like that I can afford to buy an enormous house whereas the bloke down the road is in a 1 bed flat on HB and you may not like that I can afford to employ a cleaner whereas the bloke down the road has to scrub his own loo - but you can be sure that the government can't afford to pay for the infrastructure to put us all on public transport, the government can't afford to put us all in social housing, the government is delighted to take my stamp duty and council tax and the government is thrilled that I am employing people, paying their tax, my employers tax and NI. So suck it up.

Oh, and we don't live in Stalinist Russia. Life is not fair for anyone. There is always someone richer. There is always someone poorer. Most of us worked that out by the time we hit adolescence.

Very well said, celestial

Indeed celestial, Stalinist Russia wasn't fair and neither is Communist China.

Well, it's his choice, his kids and his money.

I don't approve of private schools and am smug lucky that my local state schools are excellent.

My education didn't cost a penny and I still did well, went to a Russell Group uni and got a good degree.

Just be glad you don't have to shell out ££££££ for what may well end up being a very average education.

Well said Celestial!

celestialsquirrels - that's just wrong. An extra 7% of kids in state schools - easy, that's just 7% of 12% of the UK budget.

I'm not saying life is (or even that it should be) 100% fair and certainly not that it should be "Stalinist". I just think that the fact that you are rich should not be the decisive factor in whether your children are rich. Maybe you worked hard to drive your gas-guzzler - and if you did, good for you - if there's a level playing field, then everyone gets there on their merits and not because their parents in effect bought them a job.

Well said Celestial.

See you're still whining, OP.

You are completely wrong. It isn't 7% of a 12% budget. The 12% of budget is what they already spend on education without considering the 7% of children educated privately. You would have to gross up. And even if you grossed up on that straight line basis you would be ignoring the cost of the investment in physical infrastructure which would have to be made to absorb all those children before you even start dealing with the increased annual budget in staff and running costs etc etc. Unless in your Stalinist utopia you are planning to nationalise all the private school infrastructure in which case be prepared to spend almost the same amount in the costs of litigation. Good luck with that.

But that's the trouble with dealing with idealists. They rarely deal with realities. Nor do the understand economics.

There is never a level playing field. The fact that you are living in the uk puts you at a vast advantage to the bulk of the worlds population. Hell, the fact that you are literate puts you at an advantage to a measurable proportion of the uk population. The fact that you are a bloke puts you at a significant advantage to me, in this inherently sexist society we live in.
Of course we should try and level playing fields - but that is by trying to ensure that every child in this country is fed, educated, protected, and given opportunities to achieve. Not by taking away others' food, education, safe environments and chances on the basis they are better than the worst common denominator. Nor by chopping off your dick to make you as, apparently, disadvantaged as me

that's just wrong. An extra 7% of kids in state schools - easy, that's just 7% of 12% of the UK budget.

It isn't just 7% of 12% as there would be quite considerable set up costs in order to absorb the 7% with the current schools.
I'm just considering senior school options for one of my children and have looked at the nearest 5 state schools. All 5 of those schools have more children applying for them as their first choice than the amount of spaces available. Some of those schools don't even look particularly appealing on the league tables but the area is very populated with families and the number of school spaces doesn't equate with the number of children in the area. So if the 2 nearest private schools closed where would those children be educated? We can't just cram them into already full to bursting state schools. We can't just build new schools to accommodate them as that takes time and money and we can't use the existing private school premises because they would have to be sold under the charities commission rules (presuming they are registered charities) and we couldn't afford to purchase those premises.
So where would we educate the 7%? How would we afford the additional per pupil education cost? How would we afford the buildings required to teach them in?

But urban being wealthy will always put children at an advantage.

It will pay for homes in good catchment areas , extra curricular activities , tutoring, books, educational trips.

It will pay for university costs, professional qualifications.

It will pay for children to take up internships or low paid starting salaries.

It is the divisive factor.

Will you be prepared to use your wealth for any of those things?

If so why is that any different?

I see this thread fell asleep yesterday. But anyway.

I get it OP, I get it!

My question is - why is the conventional wisdom that sending your child to a private school is buying them advantages? Could it not be possible that most of the advantages that child has is due just to the fact the family is comfortably off anyway? And that the local state school education is actually just as good as most of the private school options?

What you need to do is find your mate's DK's school cap and wipe your backside with it. That would be humiliating. I'm sure you'd all have a good laugh about it afterwards.

i just think "let them waste their money". I went to a private school myself so i know that it is a waste of money. I don't just suspect it like some of the people standing around chewing the cud. I know it. Did me jackshit good.

Ooh er.

If anyone said this to me, I would say 'sorry I can't afford the million quid to live in a good catchment, so I'm doing the more honest thing and paying for the services I consume directly, by going private, rather than engaging in social apartheid through the catchment system'.

Exactly Aga. Put that in your crack pipe buddy.

There's more honesty to just stumping up for the school fees than buying a milliion pouhhnd house to be near a free school

UrbanDad you are very funny. And right.

Here's another for all the muppet arguments about general taxation and education funding that the well off are peddling on this thread. It doesn't work like that, pals! Can't be arsed to explain why though, go pay someone to do it.

If it's a waste of money, then where's the harm?
Why do folks get so arsed?

I earn a lot of dosh. I spend it. If some of that is on my DCs education, where's the issue?

Why do some people care how others spend their money? Envy I suppose