Why on earth would you go state if you could afford private?

[Schmedz]

This thread is for Maisie and happygardening . I like dares!

No, I'm not. But start to think I should be!

I mean... seriously? What exactly do you want a government to do?

As a matter of fact, I have relatives in the third world, who do not have many of the advantages these people have. And yet, the kids there leave school being able to write very well (their English is better than some people here, may I add) and do maths perfectly well, with some getting scholarships to private schools even. My mom was one of them - getting a scholarship year after year all the way through uni. My grandfather told her that if she lost the scholarship, she'd basically not go to school at all and would have to work in a market or something (I think at the time compulsory schooling stopped at 12). That fear alone made her want to study hard.

So you must understand that with part of my family coming from that sort of background, I do not necessarily understand the people you are telling me about because they get given so much more, and yet... they leave school with so much less.

They leave with nothing because they live in a culture of low aspirations, of having parents who place no value on education because they themselves were failed and don't know anything except a lifetime of state support. They feel hopeless because they can't get well paid jobs and if they take a menial job they may no longer be entitled to housing benefit and therefore would be unable to pay their rent so can't actually afford to work. They can't go to college to improve their education as they would lose their benefits so again are trapped, and they don't have the basic literacy to successfully complete a course that would lead to university. Their children go to school to be taught by teachers who often already have written them off to a life of hairdressing if your a girl or labouring for minimum wage if your a boy. The brighter ones may get to do admin. Many see pregnancy as a good option, not just for financial gain, but also because they want to create the family they never themselves had but end up unable to cope and the cycle continues. Drug and alcohol problems are rife. It sounds bleak but that is the reality and I don't know what the solution is.

Scarlett - I'm sorry to say... but not everyone can get well-paid jobs, and some people will have to do 'menial' jobs. There will never ever be a society where everyone has well-paid jobs... especially not in the future when there will be a lot more competition.

If they are worried that taking 'menial jobs' equals no housing benefit, then maybe things have to change. Landlords can only afford to keep rental prices high when there are people able to pay for them. If the state didn't pay housing benefit, then landlords would have to adjust rental rates to whatever people can afford.

Do these people have a TV at home? Or internet even? If so, they have more than many others in other countries, and there are free courses you can do online to teach you basic maths or whatever.

And what's the problem with hairdressing? What do you want people to do? Not everyone can be a lawyer / doctor / dentist after all... someone HAS to do what you call 'menial' jobs - I think those jobs could be good, if you make the most of them. And if you are very good in hairdressing, you can earn a lot more money than a teacher would... and in fact, some 'menial' jobs pay more than you might think. This is an old article, but might be worthwhile to read... about a lecturer who became a plumber.

Tell them Tas I am always baffled by the excuses people make in this country. Its really shocking. If a doctor I know can arrive here from a third world country and work as a bin man until he passed his plab exams then I have no sympathy for anyone who refuses to do any job just because they might lose benefits. Absolutely unheard of where I come from and I think the tide is changing in this country. The welfare state in its current state is simply unsustainable.

Completely agree with Tasmania.
The lack of aspiration and effort from some low income groups (not all ofcourse), is being ingrained even more by the benefit culture. It is wonderful to have a social system that will look after you when your circumstances change, but it is so generous that it has allowed some people to stop trying harder to get out of it.

It is getting even worse now with our ever increasing expectation that we are entitled to what we want NOW without having to work for it, fail a few time, deserve it.

I am determined to avoid this type of thinking in my own children. I don't give them want they ask for every time. They have to earn it (and recognise when a treat is a treat) this has to start from an early age. They need to learn that if they want something they have to work at it, to that effect, I hope to always have access to a school the follows the same work ethic.

Elibean - a statement of the obvious but we don't live in an ideal world and we never will. So any statement that starts with "in an ideal world" should be confined to a discussion with like minded student friends at 1am after you have returned from the student bar.

And ideal for whom? There are a number of secondary state teachers on MN who think that homework is the work of the Devil and who roll their eyes at parents who aspire for their kids to go to a top class uni and get a well paid job at the end. Having your DC taught by such a teacher or having your DC go to a school where this is the ethos may be an example of some people's ideal but it's not mine.

As for everybody being educated together being ideal? Why? How many of us grew up in a poor area and upgraded when we got a well paid job? How many of us chose the nice holiday resort with sea views, room service, large pool and kids club? I don't hear anyone argue that it's bad that other people have to stay at the cheap camp site outside of town.

But education is different, I hear you say. Why? You live in an area that reflects your socio economic situation. Your holiday destination/accomodation reflects your income level. Why stop at education?

It's like seeker. She has 'ideals' but that doesn't stop her sending her DC to a grammar school. And it's not as if her Sec Mod alternative is a bad school. The only difference between her an the GS parents that she despises is that she has been 'forced' to send her DD to the GS. Seeker is an extreme example but to me an 'idealist' is someone who only talk the talk.

Very few people live according to their ideals and people who want a nicer house or go on nicer holidays should stop lecturing parents for wanting nicer schools. Yes I know that some private schools are not 'nice' but if a parent wants to spend £15k pa per kid on a school that is worse than a comp then that parent should be pitied rather than flamed.

As for parents staying on to fight for a better school rather than jump ship by going to a GS or a private, let seeker put her DD into a sec mod and I'll put mine back into the state system. I can't get fairer then that.

That aside, if you had bright DC at a failing school (yes I know state schools aren't all failing) and you had the means, would you stay to make it better or would you move to another state school in a better catchment?

If the answer is you would stay then I applaud your convictions. If the answer is you would move then you and I aren't that different

If only life was that simple! You are absolutely right, some people simply do not want to work. However some really can't because their lives are just too chaotic and they do not have the coping mechanisms to be able to sustain long term employment.

My point about hair dressing was that the schools often don't even bother to try and give young girls other options.

Plumbing is also absolutely not a menial job. It is a skilled trade which requires apprentices to pass numerous exams, that those in the group we are discussing are unable to pass.

Has the Daily Mail hacked into this thread? Substitute the words 'blacks' for working class, in some of the above posts, and they sound like the arguments which used to be trotted out in white South Africa.

I remember, a good many years ago now, the then politician Matthew Parris declared that it was possible to live well on benefits, and fair do's to him, he tried it. He did manage it for a week, but he found it difficult. As I recall, he had to be extremely frugal with heat for one, and there was absolutely no margin if anything went wrong. He gave up politics shortly after.

I'd agree with scarlett - if you are struggling to find the money for rent, you are not going to find the odd 12K to avoid the sort of school where some of the teachers will openly say that 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.' What's the solution? I don't know either.

Just found a link about Matthew Parris en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Parris

Timetoask- I suggest you stop reading the daily mail! There are some people who appear to have a very comfortable life on benefits, the reality for the majority is very different. The boys on my programme who grow up in workless households often have no money for the bus to get to work, no money for even a basic sandwich at lunch time and no food at home to make one, and literally have perhaps one track suit and cheap shoes to wear to interview. Once they leave school at sixteen their mothers, as daddy is rarely around, are not entitled to child benefit but the young person is not entitled to sign on either so they have £70 a week coming in to support mum and teenage son, including food, transport, heating, electric etc. Do you really think the majority would choose that if they had a better option??

LaVolcan - there was a recent thread about how much one needs to earn in order to be able to afford private education.

Based on my actual expenses I calculated £40k pa to put one kid through prep. That figure was met with derision by many. There was no way anybody (ie them) can live comfortably off the £27k gross that was left after fees were deducted.

I am not going to turn this into a thread about a thread. I just wanted to make the point that just because some politician can't live comfortably on benefits proves nothing.

scarlette I volunteered in a primary school for several years that chimes with what you say.

A white working class/under class mono culture. Low expectation. Low achievement.

Not one child from that primary school had ever applied to the nearest grammar (out of catchment but they take some from out). In my years there, nt one child went to the nearest outstanding comp. They simply went on mass to the similarly poor secondary.

The parents had very little interest in their DC's education and the teachers had been ground down by everyhting from the parents, to the DC's behaviour, to endless governent dictats on How To Do Better.

I really really don't know what one does about it.

However, what I do know, is that no one on this thread, even the most vociferous anti private schoolers, would want their DC to attend the school.

Scarlett - My hairdresser's DD is early 20s. She has three children by two different guys and she has never had job. The way she sees it (according to her mom) why work in a supermarket like her friends for shit pay when the council will pay for her to have babies.

We live in a relatively affluent area so the council housing is either modern or new so it's not as if she has any motivation to get a job so that she can afford decent housing.

I accept that there are many people trapped in the circle of poverty and that Life has dealt them a shit hand. However, there is a significant proportion that choose a life of benefits because, after tax, travel etc the minimum wage isn't that attractive for a 35-40 hour week.

These people do have a choice. Not a very good one but they do have a choice. And that choice seems to be good enough for a lot of African, Filipino and Eastern European migrant workers.

How do people know that a significant number of people choose a life on benefits? I'm not saying they don't- for all I know they do. But how do people know? For a fact?

because the Daily Mail tells them so.

seeker I suppose in the same way you know why people choose private school ...

But seriously, a lot of us personally know people like this. The trouble is when you're achingly middle class and have been all your life, you don't have personal experience of living on the big etsates etc

For those of us that do have that experience, it's different. Can i just tell you that my Mum's next door neighbour hasn't worked in over twenty years!

Can I just say as well that the vast majority of poeple on the states are low wage workers and the lazy arses piss them off to high heaven.

They're a lot less tolerant of these people than the achingly middle class.

So, as I thought the lifestyle benefit claimants are a tiny minority. So making policy or even comments as if they are statistically significant is the bollocks I thought it was.

Wordfactory- might I humbly suggest that you are a number of years away from the estate?

There was supposed to be a after my last sentence, wordfactory!

wordfactory - Defeatist talk I know but there is nothing anybody can do about.

seeker - I just love when people who go around making sweeping statements about parents who opt for a selective education then turn around and ask you justify your numbers.

But to answer your question I went to the same source that you base your assertions on

Please ignore all those posters that tell you to feck off. MN would be quite boring if we are just left with posters like TOSN or grovel.

So with one breath you accuse me of making sweeping generalisations about people who use selective schools based on no evidence at all, then in the next, say you use the same source to support your assertions about people on benefits?

Riiiiiiiigggggggghhhhhhht!

Why is it that I am more familiar with what you post than you are? Do you just make things up at the keyboard?

You often go on about how you base your assertions from what you read, people that you know and from your own experiences. Having guilty thoughts perhaps?

It's interesting how you immediately assumed that I was talking about you making it up .

Seeker are you for real??? surely you must get tired of your Jekyll and Hyde games you play.

Like I said, MN would be quite boring without you seeker. It's a bit like me being the Roadrunnner and you being Wiley Coyote. Without you and your bumbling ways I'm just someone running round fast with no purpose.

Well, unless the only thing you read is the Daily Mail, and the only person you talk to is Peter Hitchin, you can't possibly believe that being on benefits is a lifestyle choice for more than a tiny minority. Tempted to start a thread "Have you actually met anyone on benefits?"