Is banning private schools a workable solution?

[APMF]

Whenever the conversation turns to bias in favour of privately educated people there are always voices that shouts out - ban private schools!

Is this a badly thought out knee jerk reaction or am I missing something?

IMO if private schools were to be banned the following would happen.

a) the rich would educate their kids abroad. Aged 18 those kids will be back to grab those coveted uni places and, on graduating, the top jobs. So no change there.

b) some will choose to buy up the properties around the highly regarded state schools. Thus driving up prices and nudging aside your untutored DC which is what is happening in parts of London

c) Some will take the fees saved and hire tutors in order to give their dcs an advantage.

d) x thousands of kids will rejoin the state system thus busting an already over stretched system. Tax increases for everybody to pay for the extra resources and if you thought that it was hard getting into your over subscribed comp at the moment ......

As I said above, is banning private schools a badly thought out solution or am I missing something?

driventodrink
there are state boarding schools
BUT
frankly as there is no country in the world that has banned people using private schools
its all utterly academic.

talkin I know there are state ones, but I chose a school close to my parents so the DC had someone who could be there quickly in an emergency. Believe me if I had the state boarding option I would, it would save me a fortune in fees.

I just wondered how the idealist who think I am buying an unfair advantage, where I feel I am just buying a level playing field (we are at a cheap non academic school, paying for stability not results), would do with my DC.

I think when us lot of oldies go on about the past things were diffrenet then.

There were not as many unis.
not as many universities
not as much competition.

Im not sure I belive in free good state education.

As every well performing school in our area has a rather expensive postcode so only affluent middleclass can buy themselves into those schools anyway.

Maybe rural uk has better options but big cities like london, bristol,birmingham have real issues with schools ,tiny catchements, pupils getting injured or stabbed, people not getting any school place.

The real issue is social mobility has decreased.
we live in global world so competing against well educated people from europe and other countries .

I would say easier 20years ago for someone who went to bad school with well supportive parents and working hard managed to do well could same be said today when gcses/alevel graded devalued, lot private schools opting for interanational bacc, when the cost of university is so very high.

we have to face the fact todays kids have much less advantage than we had.

If they cant afford to go higher education then its even harder to get well paid job work way up.

So many unemployed graduates.

most need to do further masters and get right work experience.

private school aims to get best highest grades.
networking and ability to communicate well in interveiws.
lots extra curricular stuff whch can help them get noticed.

If I had the money I would go private.

I think some people do try improve schools but improving takes time and a few bad years can affect childs education.

Can you really blame parents for not wanting to put their childs education on the line and take a gamble for greater good.

If they can afford it then its up to them how they spend their money.

@rabbit - Very few of us, when presented with an escape route, will choose to stand and fight, particularly when we have no personal stake in the outcome. It's just human nature as opposed to a unfeeling MC thing.

driventodrink - you are talking to nobody, since nobody is actually suggesting the banning of all private schools. In fact, to ban private schools when nobody is agreed on what state education should be like would really be daft. You can't discuss the future of private schools without considering the future of state schools.

On social mobility - do we have less social mobility than we did in the Victorian era and before? And if not, then when was this golden age of social mobility? Surely not in the time when social mobility was necessary because of the huge numbers of people killed off by stupid wars and a change in the type of labour that was required? Surely not at a time when the number of opportunities for non-manual work went up exponentially and before the numbers required for this type of work then went down again with the increase in technology?... How much was social mobility related to this and how much to grammar schools? If we had gone straight to comprehensive education, rather than state grammar schools, but with fast streams for brighter pupils within those schools, would any diminishing in social mobility have been down to snobbery, or a genuinely inferior education (after all, state grammar school boys and girls were looked down on when these schools were set up, even if they did get into positions previously occupied by public schoolboys, so I can imagine state school boys who hadn't even gone to more exclusive state schools would have been looked down on even more in those days... it's only since grammar schools were largely abolished that the rose tinted spectacles have come out and people have started to view grammar schools as practically a private education)? Do we actually have any verifiable answers to any of this, or does everyone just speculate on the impact of policies of the past and the reasons behind them???

You're right there, APMF. Some people will stand firm for longer, but only a tiny minority ever fight to the death, particularly when the death concerned is their children's future prospects rather than their own! Maybe a few childless idealists are what we require!

(erase reference to "stupid" wars and replace with "world" wars, given that I do not wish to discuss the actions which led to world wars 1 and 2 and which particular activities leading to the sadly inevitable were stupid and which weren't!...).

The idealists did away with GSs nationally, thinking that it will solve the inequality issue. The well off kid went of to private school while the bright but poor kid went to the comp.

Today various studies have shown that the top universities are disproportionately biased towards GSs and Indies.

Sorry but I'm not placing much hope on the idealists getting the job done.

APMF
The bias at top universities is only about 10% towards private schools and dropping fast.
Statistically there should be about 25% private and grammar school kids at the RG unis.
Currently its around 35% and 45% at Oxbridge.
Not something I'm worrying about by the time my kids get there.

PS there are some VERY rich kids at DCs comp .....

.... re the need for childless idealists comment, idealists with no stake in the subject can talk out of their arses and make decisions safe in the knowledge that it doesn't impact them or those they love. So no thanks.

There are no private schools (as the UK knows them) in Belgium - there are International schools which are fee paying, and a few other exceptions. The Royal Family send their kids to state schools here.

charley - the figures are a very rough amalgam of the dfee stats - so no, they cannot take into account tuition fees as those have not impacted backwards onto gcse's yet.

as I posted on another thread .....
I'll round from 7% to 10% as it makes the maths easier
1000 children hit school ....
100 go private 100 go state selective 800 go state non selective
they all sit GCSEs
after GCSE's statistically 30% kids leave education - and chances are they will all come from the non selective schools
so we now have 100 private 100 selective 500 non selective
after A levels, statistically another 1/3 leave full time education (they may do training courses but will not consider degrees)
again chances are they will not mostly come from the selective and private schools, so an approximation of the students applying for degrees would be
80 private 80 selective 140 non selective
then in degree choices, the kids aiming for RG degrees will be the upper third of that lot - and by definition, the selective school kids will be in the upper half of state, leaving
27 private 40 selective and 33 non selective
ie 27% from private schools at top universities, with not a hint of discrimination, just the likelihood of career choices
round back down from 10% to 7% and you end up with a quarter ....
which actually would be a significant improvement both for our children and the country.

TalkinPeace - you are missing the factor that a significant proportion of independent schools are as selective as grammar schools.

where in my maths do I miss that part?

and actually out here in the sticks, nope, a good half of the private schools are not selective beyond wallet size.

You have taken 33% of those pupils in both the state and private sector who will be applying for university as RG potential. However while the state sector on average has a "comprehensive intake" the private sector does not. If 50% of independent schools are not selective, this does not make their intake the equivalent of a secondary modern with the top creamed off to selective independents, they are far more likely to be fairly comprehensive in their intake. While this is partly taken account of by your retention rates in remaining in education, I would contend that private schools have a higher proportion of the most able pupils.

And I agree with you that in the sticks (where I am too) 50% is about the proportion, which I think is a significant proportion and ignores the skew of more independent schools being in cities (especially London) with a high proportion being selective in cities.

breatheslowly
33 from the state schools out of an 800 starting figure .....
27 from private out of 100 starting
40 from grammars out of 100 starting

tallies with the dfee stats that I have downloaded to my PC

Rabbit stew - lots of interesting points you make there which I shall mull over. Nought wrong with calling world wars 'stupid'.

Talkinpeace - re. the very rich kids at your dc's school:
Public schools are sometimes given substantial donations by grateful alumni or parents - a few years back Eton was given a vast sum of money to go towards bursaries and scholarships by an old boy who had been there on a full scholarship and wanted to repay the school for what he'd got out of his time there.
Anyway, do the parents of these rich children ever give donations to your dc's school - if, that is, the state allows this?

The bit I dispute is that of the top 10% of children, 25% go to private schools and 75% go to state schools. I also disagree that of the top 10% of children 40% go to grammar schools as the areas with grammar school provision are limited, with a lot of areas only having comprehensives.

Charley it will be interesting to see the effect of the increase in university fees. I think it will not hit the poorest families as you suggest but those who earn just above the cut off point. Many students this year from low income families have an increased maintenance grant/ national scholarship programme (a sensible idea) but also many too have a fee waiver (IMO not a sensible idea as they all graduate with the same degree and none of it is paid up front.) So they are the students that have the most income. It is those in the middle that will suffer.
There is no reason that all these children should therefore come from non selective state school/comprehensives. As I have said I think it is the middle group of earners that will be hit and their DCs can come from a variety of schools.

the dfee data is there for anybody to download and data mine....

maybe now the schools are academies they will set up alumni programmes

and the prospect of paying fees of £9k p.a
but they won't - that is not how the fees work - they are a graduate tax

If you ban private education on the basis that it is unfair, faith schools need to go too.

sminko...who on earth do you think 'the state' is....it's US 'taking up the slack'...6 or 7% of all children is not 'slack' but if a frig of a load of money which we as a country cannot afford, through taxes or otherwise. I also very much doubt if any charitable donations/alumni donations would continue as they generally are very much aiming at the institution, not the kids attending it (IYSWIM)