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

[happygardening]

Thought I repost the OP although the debate has moved on a little .
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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happygardening - I don't think that "old school tie" means a single school tie. But there is a tight knit network of certain schools/universities/employers where so many people know so many people that it is something of a closed shop.

My DP and I met at the alumni cocktail of a firm we both worked in, but not at the same time. Apart from that firm, nothing particular about either of predisposed us to have many friends or acquaintances in common. Except that, whenever he meets my friends, they always find dozens of common friends - and vice versa! I can be sure that, if I go to some party at the home of some friend of his I have never met, I will bump into someone I know.

Happy the term 'old school tie' was used to explain social networks because it used to be quite common for boys to attend the same school as their fathers, the go onto be members of the same clubs (Carlton, Golf etc etc).

So their father's network was often from the same school as well.

Obviously at the time, women were excluded (and in many cases still are)

It is now used I think more in a social network way that exclusively about schools, but the outcome is largely the same.

This is life. Even in my "equal opportunities" profession I hear of a job tell a friend whose interested she has a "informal interview" with the boss I put in a good word and guess who 8 times out of 10 gets the job? IME in this day and age where jobs no longer grow on trees even in my area its all about making sure you in the right place at the right time and know the right people.

Yup. Who you know is mighty important - you don't have to know VIP name-dropping worthy people but you do need to know people for whom you can do favours which they will in due course return.

Yup, social networks are still used, which is why we have such a big issue with inequality (not just class).

creamteas I agree with your analysis of the term. On that basis contrary to what many write on MN and often given as a reason why independent ed should be banned or the reason for the often extreme hostility to independent ed getting the "right job" usually has got absolutely nothing to do with what school you went too.

agree that still happens a lot...

creamteas - social networks are a necessary part of life. When you want something done, it gets done so much better by the person who has an emotional/social connection with you than by someone you have never met and with whom you have nothing/no-one in common. Social networks create value and add hugely to the economy.

In my case and Im sure in the case of many others in professional networks. No one want s to employ either someone who's useless or not going to fit in.

Bonsoir social networks can create opportunities, but they also exclude a lot.

I would prefer people got opportunities because they were the best, not because they knew the right person.

creamteas - nevertheless the fact that you know someone when you employ them means they work harder (= create more value). This has economic benefits...

Er... not necessarily. Sometimes they work less hard as they have nothing to prove and feel secure in the job as they have friends in high places....

In my dept, we have a really, really, bad administrator who is married to one of the pro-VCs.... This is not a benefit

Married (or having sex with...) is not what I meant!

The point is: who wants to lose face in their social network? No-one - so they deliver better. There was an article about this recently in The Economist - I'll look for it - but it just makes sense.

I have read lots of research on social networks ( used to teach a module on it). Trust me the same can happen even if people are not having sex.... I only used it as an example, as I have to deal with it everyday

In many cases its better to employ people we feel we have some affinity with. A few years ago I applied for a job I disliked my potential boss on sight to me she typified everything thats bad with my profession. I in her view (she told me in the "post interview feed back") was a outspoken pain in the arse (don't know why she got that impression) who was refusing to lower her standards and move with the times in this cash strapped climate. We were both happy that I was not offered the job.

Do you use networks, creamteas? Can you relate to this?

I totally disagree with the idea that someone who gets the job because they "know" someone automatically works harder!... Someone who is having to work incredibly hard to establish connections they didn't gain just by going to a highly selective public school and making friends there is highly likely to keep on working incredibly hard to impress as a result, because they know they NEED the good references and to make contacts to do well.

I have a relative who works for a small company where a particularly poisonous woman was employed largely because she was a friend of the boss. He then realised that as an employee she was not good, but didn't feel able to get rid of her, despite the misery caused to everyone else who worked for him (and resulting resignations). It finally ended messily with solicitors having to get involved to help him extricate himself from the situation, which he would have found much easier to resolve if he weren't so hyper-sensitive to her personal situation and issues-which-should-not-be-brought-into-the-workplace.

Bonsoir I'm not sure what you mean. If you mean do I meet and work with other people in my field then yes I do.

I am a member of a professional organisation, I have to be for my job. But I don't actively seek to develop networks. I'm not registered as an alumni member of any of the universities I attended (and I actively try to avoid attending them at the university where I work).

That is a heartwarming story, Issy.

I agree that social networks are important. They can work for good as well as evil. That's why it can be a good thing when "privileged" parents send their kids to state schools; types of social networks are formed that might not be formed otherwise.

Or, as another example, when one candidate from a school gets into a uni, it can pave the way for others to apply there too.

Nepotism. Paving the way for hard work and sacrifice since 2013.

Well it's the first time I've heard it described so anyway!

:( to miss whatever peterenas said in her deleted dick rattling post (an enlightening PM would be warmly welcomed :) But driving home into my village this evening I distracted myself by counting the number of houses inhabited by OEs and current Etonians beyond those to which I've already referred. They're like a rash around here . The dad in the house across the road when I was little (other side of the country) was also an entitled OE (a philanderer, whose wife stuck her head in a gas oven on that account when her youngest daughter was aged 5). And I grew up with a toy stuffed fox bought for me by my father called Hugo [Something] after one of his OE City colleagues who was inordinately stupid and/ but hung up on hunting. Quite affable though, according to my dad, but so, so stupid. A very famous name however, with a fabulous network. I then went to a university with a good representation of OEs who offended all the indigenous neighbours with patronising bottles of gin to calm them down on party nights and then went into the City which in those days was wallpapered with OEs. So peterenas, I do have some experience of the Dark Side. As I'm sure do very many here on MN.

Incidentally Cambridge offers the equivalent of Oxford's flagging peterenas and well done for again dodging a question.