If you can afford private education but remain in the state sector...

[TheseJeansHaveShrunk]

It's going to be hard to avoid this becoming another state v private thread, but what I'm interested in is a slightly different take on that debate. It's not "which is better?" but "if you think state school is better even though you could afford private education, then why is that?"

The question is based on the assumptions that the DC in question is/are reasonably bright (so might benefit academically from academically selective education), that the state school is non-selective (as most people don't have access to grammar schools), and that you hope for your DC to go to a good university (to make the £££££ fees worthwhile!)

I've been mulling this over ever since I heard some maths professor from Cambridge talking on the radio about the age-old private v state inequality of Oxbridge admissions. He was all for improving access for state school applicants but said that the simple fact was that for maths, even the best state schools generally teach only to the A-level syllabus, whereas the best private schools take their maths/further maths A-level candidates well beyond the syllabus and so the state school applicants are at a huge disadvantage - they simply don't have the starting level of knowledge required for the course.

This made me wonder: with this sort of unequal playing field, if you have the choice of private education, what reasons might you have not to take it?

Would be interested to hear from those who've made this choice - how it's working out, or if your DC have finished school now, how did it work out? Did they go to good universities/get good jobs, etc? On the other side of things, if you paid for private schooling but now regret it, why?

My DC go to a state school by the way.

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I told you where to go. Read it. We all know this issue is not one of a few numbers. Otherwise it wouldn't come up on MN again and again and again with same old tired arguments from people who have no knowledge of any other system and nothing to bring to the table.

Yes, PenelopePipPop, could you just quickly link to the internet so that I too can gain the insights you did while doing your PhD in Law, there's a dear .

Chandon,

I'm with seekr on this one
" However, I think of "getting kids into Oxbridge" as a sort of code for not closing down children's choices because of their background."

I don't think of Oxbridge entrance in these discussions as being 'good in itself', but as a kind of 'shorthand' for exactly what seeker describes.

'You do not solve all the problems of education by making schools comprehensive. '

I don't think anybody is naive enough to believe this.

There are less problems in independent schools because, by and large, they are selective - they select on ability and on ability to pay.

I also continue to say that the vast majority of problems 'in education' are actually social problems. This is demonstrable by the difference in 'school readiness' between two children with the same aptitude by the age of 4 where they are born into families from different social classes.

Bonsoir - I am sure it must all be complicated research and difficult to summarise.

However, you did summarise it thus: Since you consistently argue for fully comprehensive education, which is proven to disadvantage the cleverest, that is you I am pointing my finger at, seeker

But Bonsoir, the point stands. Scandinavian countries have had a historically comprehensive education system and still perform well. That directly contradicts your point earlier.

I suppose if you want us all to live in Ikea furnishings and wear H&M clothes, then Scandinavia is OK. My idea of hell.

Bonsoir, I agree that this discussion is a tricky and highly nuanced one. Which is why a glib assertion such as the one you made "based on your extensive research" has been challenged. If you had presented it in the appropriately nuanced way that someone who was genuinely an expert would have done...a kind of 'on the one hand research from blah and blah shows this, but on the other hand I realise they are alking about systems like X so it is possible that in systems like Y the same conclusions would not necessarily apply', then you would not have been challnged in the same way.

If you are an expert on the literature, then please could you point me at the best research summary available into the performance of all groups of students, across the ability range, in a comprehensive system in which ability setting or streaming is the norm?

*'You do not solve all the problems of education by making schools comprehensive. '

I don't think anybody is naive enough to believe this.*

Then why do I read this argument again and again and again on MN?

I agree, and argue fervently, that addressing social problems is a much more urgent issue than trying to re-engineer society through schooling.

'same old tired arguments from people who have no knowledge of any other system and nothing to bring to the table. '

It sounds like you are describing your own way of arguing there Bonsoir. You seem to resolutely ignore any real evidence unless it suits your point and even then you don't actually provide us with facts and figures and just tell us to go and find it ourselves...

You also make some rather unpleasant assumptions about other people. In fact, I have 15 years' teaching experience of every age group and pretty much every type of school from both state and independent sectors. I could go on about my experience and qualifications but I am not what makes my arguments valid - the EVIDENCE is what makes them valid.

'I suppose if you want us all to live in Ikea furnishings and wear H&M clothes, then Scandinavia is OK. My idea of hell. '

Make your mind up Bonsoir. You argued that comprhensive education would make the country less globally competitve.

The EVIDENCE in Scandinavia would dispute this.

Deal with the evidence rather than your personal prejudices and assumptions.

It is only Finland that is doing well, and it is doing increasingly less well.

Norway is doing very badly right now (look at PIRLS).

Bonsoir, I'd really like to see where anybody has EVER argued on Mumsnet that a move to an entirely comprehensive system would solve all the problems in education so I'm surprised by your claim that you've seen it over and over again.

You've already agreed that most of the problems 'in education' are actually social so it wouldn't be possible for ANY education system to solve these in isolation.

There needs to be a discussion on pedagogies - the best schools use the best ones well, irrespective of state/private/mixed ability/selective/setting.

Are the French a bit out of date? Could that be part of the reason for their comprehensive Comprehensive cock-up?

I don't think you can ascribe the wide-ranging problems in the French school system solely to its comprehensive nature.
The differences in teacher training, pay, working conditions, societal expectations, intake systems, catchment organisation, etc. are huge and play a vital role.
And what has bland furniture got to do with anything? Perhaps I am obtuse.

Chandon you have a point. Certainly, universities are very exclusive institutions, and sometimes in a rather unhealthy way. They do not always have good relationships with their local communities,

Where I would differ is that universities are not just big schools, which is why selection at 18 is different to selection at 11.

Oxford, Cambridge and many other universities in the UK are research institutions which allow students in to study alongside people research at the cutting edge of their field. In theory this means that to succeed at them you have to have the aptitude to be able to study at that cutting edge too. In practice it is more wobbly than that. In predominantly vocational courses like law and medicine so much of the content of the degree is predetermined by the professional bodies that there is divergence between academic research interests and what students have to be taught at least in the first 2,3 or 4 years of the course. No one doing medical research also has to learn first year anatomy any more (they all forgot it years ago). But at some point in your degree you should be taken to the edge of the island of knowledge and shown that we actually know bugger all. I tend to think that is the end of a university education, working out how clueless we are. My students hate me.

Not every 18 year old is equally capable of grasping much of what is covered in a university course which is why we try to select on aptitude. Judging by the students we accept we get it wrong a fair bit which suggests some students with the aptitude do not get the opportunity too. Trying to maximise the ability of the students is important to universities not because we are lovely egalitarian institutions (although personally I'd like to live in a society where people born with less material wealth had more opportunities) but just because we only want to teach smart people, stupid students waste our valuable research time.

Statistically sending your child to an independent school would appear to maximise their chances of getting to a university. In practice I suspect there are too many other variables involved for any individual child for it to be that simple which is why I'm agnostic on the indy v state issue across the board.

pickledsiblings - the French are indeed out of date. Why? Because when you ban private education, you effectively remove a large part of the innovation in the education sector. It's the same in any industry - public sector monopolies are slow to renew themselves and gradually decline in productivity and competitiveness.

"But at some point in your degree you should be taken to the edge of the island of knowledge and shown that we actually know bugger all."

Agree absolutely! I still remember the point in my first year when the lecturer walked onto the stage and said 'well, as my lab has just proved that a whole chunk of today's lecture is not correct, and we don't yet have a better answer, I'm going to tell you a little about our latest research rather than giving the lecture'

Magical moment of looking into the abyss of 'things we don't know yet'.

AuldAlliance - the fundamental problem with French education is that it is a state monopoly, and has been one for an awfully long time. But any fully comprehensive education system is going to be a state monopoly and will decline in the same fashion if it is large.

Small counties (eg Finland) do have a "small country advantage" when reforming public sector institutions. Having said that, there is a great deal of political unrest in Finland at the moment, with the traditional consensus culture unravelling and little to put in its place.

Bonsoir, are there no private schools in France? A very brief Google revealed that '15% of French children attend a private school of 1 sort or another' - I realise that this is not 'in depth research' but I am interested in your assertion that private education is 'banned' in France?

I have read hugely on this topic. Good for you Bonsoir. The rest of us haven't?

when you remove Latin (in the UK) you remove the explicit teaching of English grammar (because Latin was how grammar was traditionally imparted in English schools).

The sweeping assertion that you only teach English grammar if you teach Latin doesn't really stand up to. Undoubtedly grammarians did try to force the English language into a straight jacket of Latin Grammar. For an informed discussion on this read the writings of
David Crystal

I have posted before about Finland. There are 3 main culturally different groups schooled in Finland in a similar manner. Of these three, the Finnish speaking Finns do best - to excel in the Finnish school system, you need to be...ahem...Finnish through and through, it would seem.

'you ban private education, you effectively remove a large part of the innovation in the education sector'

There is not necessarily a correlation.

Again, I refer you to Finland. The research you site yourself points to New Zealand and Canada performing very highly when neither has a strong tradition of private education.

Bonsoir, are you saying that the Private Sector is innovative or that its existence causes the State to be innovative?

Pickled, that is interesting because it might suggest that research on educational systems does not necessarily apply across country / cultural borders - perhaps that education is so much embedded in the society and culture that it comes from that a system which works well in one context will not necessarily have the same results elsewhere?