Why is private education so taboo now?

[DoMyBest]

When I was younger I was privately educated as were most of my friends. Now we all have children and almost all of them have decided to send their children to state schools. Whilst for most of them it was a question of money, for others it really wasn't: they believe that every child should have the same educational opportunities and if parents like them start giving their kids exclusive treatment then the system won't work. Some of these parents chose local 'outstanding' state schools, but one couple with enough money to buy every private school in town admirably chose their worst local state school and work hard to improve it.

I listen to these stories with interest, sometimes admiration but mostly respect for their choices & views.

So it's with some alarm, now we have chosen a private school for our son, do discover the hatred this decision engenders. Private education has, it would seem, become taboo.

So here's my question: is it morally right for people to get angry with parents who privately educate their children?

I'm not sure private schooling actually does buy jobs for kids in most walks of life. Some people really do bankrupt themselves trying to pay for their kids to go to private school. You could say that in many cases, that's just misguided. Their kids might well have done far better had they saved the cash and helped their kids onto the housing ladder, or helped them set up a business, or enabled them to travel the world and enjoy themselves, or encouraged a random hobby. The sort of parent who pays for their kids to go to private school is not the sort that will, if their children do go to the local comprehensive instead, then leave them to sink or swim. They will in general find whatever way they can to help their children succeed in life, to protect them from whatever they feel they need protecting from, to give them the skills they value, to give them the experiences they feel to be worthwhile. The biggest inequalities exist outside of the school system, not within it - most of our state schools are perfectly adequate when it comes to educating such well-supported people sufficiently to get a good job at the end of it. If you want to put an end to that inequality in background, you have to do something far more radical than get rid of an excellent way of draining spare money out of peoples' pockets.

Can someone please explain to me how sending my DS to a state school would have benefited any other children?
I can see that by choosing to send my DS to his independent school and turning down a place at a super selective grammar has hopefully benefited another boy. But it doesn't matter how I look at it I can't see that my choosing an independent school actually makes any difference to other children. But it has made a difference to him as an individual.

happygardening - you could have sent your ds to state school and donated the money you are spending on his private education to a worthy cause which benefits children from difficult backgrounds?...

If you are actually spending money on something, you could always be spending it on something else if you chose to, and therefore benefiting someone or something else in the process, whether that be you, someone else in your family, some other business or charity, the state's coffers, or some other country.

You could then change your name to saintlyhappygardening. ;-)

I would happily send DD to the local state and she did go until Yr2, but it was so bad, she couldn't read, was told she was rubbish at maths, she sobbed daily at going, lost confidence and developed a phonic tic.

The alternative state was full and the waiting list was long.

I wasn't so thrilled about removing her to a private school, it went against what I felt was right, but it was best for her.

Within a few weeks my happy confident child returned. She is in Yr4 now and has several times thanked us for taking her out her old school.

As I said before, I cannot believe the difference, I am sure there are just as good state schools out there, but not unfortunately in our area.

HappyGardening, my friend (who chose her local state over private because it was so bad and because she thought she could make a difference) argues that it helps as (1) a first step towards wiping out inequality - she lives in an area where state schools are frowned on by those who can afford private, she says if parents like her set the example & value the state system then others might follow, (2) she helps raise money for the school which has helped build stuff the kids love which has given the school a happier atmosphere (3) she's on the board of governors and is working hard to improve standards. I like her reasoning, and can see the results start to pay off. I just still wouldn't have made the same choice.

liberty how on earth does private school buy jobs?

Do you imagine that assembly involves a conveyor belt, contasining offers for positions at Goldmans? That the year 10s can just hand over a fiver and keep the offer until later?

Also, I think the idea that one cannot be proud of ones achievements is your parents payed for private school a nonsense.

I ewas brought up on one of the worst council estates in the UK. My parents left school at 15. I'm dyslexic.

I would say every single poster on this threadf had a better start than me. That they were advanataged. Does that mean their achievments are worth less than mean? That only I'm allowed to be proud?

What utter rubbish!

"Can someone please explain to me how sending my DS to a state school would have benefited any other children?"

It wouldn't. Private education can be a huge benefit to individual children and that makes no difference to individual children in the same cohort. That's why swapping personal anecdotes is entertaining but pointless.

What we are talking about is how the whole system works. How private education,naming many other things, perpetuates privilege and maintains an inherently unfair society.

Those who don't earn enough to help those who are also badly off by buying a school place can help in other ways. They could, on the arguments put forward on the thread, not read to their own child at night but go out and do that on the local council estate. They could give their children half its dinner and the other half to a neighbour. They could make sure their child spoke badly to level the playing field so that it had as poor communications skills as the other children around. As you see this proves how wrong those parents are who say that private schooling is some kind of awful moral wrong. In fact it is the moral high ground no better or worse than all the cuddles and consideration and reading to them that good parents do to their child. It is part of that continuum of doing your best for your own child.

I think one of the worst inequalities in education , is not the existence of privsate schools, but the lack of funding for tertiary education.

The current system of loans, means all but the very poor are reliant on their parents being able and willing to pay for their living expenses (the mainanance loan usually doesn't even cover accommodation).

Thos of us who are willing and able to pay for these top ups and greatly advanataging our DC. We're massively disadvanataging all those DC who cannot get the cash and either have to go to their nearest university and live at home, or not go at all.

I wonder how many of us, though, will choose not to pay for this advanatge when the time comes?

Anyone?

"I would say every single poster on this threadf had a better start than me. That they were advanataged. Does that mean their achievments are worth less than mean? That only I'm allowed to be proud?"

Actually, Word, yes I do think your achievements count for more, say than mine do. I come from a long line of university educated men and women in professional occupations. My brothers and I did the same- we had to fight no battles, overcome no resistance-it was easy for us. My daughter will go to university in September (barring disasters in June). We have been willing and able to support her through the process. I am very proud of her, but nobody could possibly say it was a struggle for her!

You had to swim against the tide- I swam with it.

Maybe so martorana but I still don't think that means you and everyone else can't be just as proud.

The idea that DC who are advantaged in any way, be that private school or whatever, don't work hard, have no talent, buy their achievments so they can't be proud as adults (which is essentially what liberty was saying) is bloody daft.

DoMyBest 1. if I send my DS to a state I don't to believe that those who send their DS's to Eton, Win Coll, SPS Westminster will follow suit, people who do this don't give a stuff about where their neighbours send their children. Parents who choose Eton et al don't sit their weighing up the pros and cons of Eton over Billericay Comprehensive, they don't compare their results, suddenly find religion hoping they'll get into their local church school or wait until the local LEA has allocated them a school before deciding whether or not to turn down the place at Eton, state education is not even on their radar. 2. I don't have the time to raise money for my school. 3. I don't have time or the motivation to be a governor I would rather boil my head than be a governor or sit on a PTA.
Finally I don't live in an area with failing unpopular state schools I live in an area with state schools that frequently have better results than many less selective independent schools, this is wealthy Middleclassville people are not sending their children to independent schools because their state options are rubbish, they're sending them to independent schools because this is what they do, they like and believe in what it has to offer, and feel the ethos matches and suits them. So what do suggest shall I move to a deprived area as well?

But yes, motherteresahappygardening.

"The idea that DC who are advantaged in any way, be that private school or whatever, don't work hard, have no talent, buy their achievments so they can't be proud as adults (which is essentially what liberty was saying) is bloody daft."

I agree. But I certainly have a level of expectation for my children because of the advantages they have had. I see no reason why people should be praised for things that come easily to them (back to the old "it's no fair that Fred gets a gold star for sitting on the carpet for 5 minutes when my PFB doesn't get one for always sitting on the carpet" Mumsnet meme) There are children for whom 6 Cs at GCSE is a huge and praiseworthy achievement. For mine it would......not be. Once you get in to Eton, for example,(or any other good private school you care to name) you have to try quite hard (qua Prince Harry) not to do well. So surely 10 As from Eton is a less impressive achievement than 10 A from Bash Street Comprhensive with 50% lower achievers and a hugely disadvantage catchment?

Hmm. You could still be hard done by as a result of the weight of your parents' expectations, from a privileged background. Isn't it lucky that Darwin's father backed down about the Beagle voyage? He told his son he would be a disappointment to the family because he wasted his time hunting for beetles and mucking about outside instead of knuckling down to a classical education and then working hard to become a doctor or clergyman.

Comps in Billericay are aspirational around here, with people moving to get into catchment. Not all state schools are equal.

Which is an intrinsic part of the problem.

MrsCake your not getting it are you? I live in the catchment area of one of the countries best performing state schools, with places, over the county line is a top ten usually top five grammar school my DS had a place there and still I choose to pay.
Why because I like what it offers, I'm not talking about exam results I firmly believe that my DS would have got the same results, if he hadn't died of boredom, at either state schools I like it there, I feel comfortable there, I like the staff, the ethos, the lack of government interference, the breadth of education, the learn something everyday for the sake of it not because it's could be on the next exam paper, I like the fact that he's not being made to sit 12 GCSE's, that history and a English Lit are not examined subjects just done because they are there, I like the fact that my DS who has no real interest in literature talks with passion about Mallory, Dante, Hardy, then suddenly opera, then Shakespeare then last night a 20 th century artist who I've never heard of, I like the fact that sport is optional and he as a none team player doesn't have to do a team sport, I like the fact that it's an oasis of tranquility in this busy world we live in, I'm even slightly sold on the Mediaeval building and the daffodils in the grass. And that is why I pay I too couldn't give a stuff about where my friends and neighbours send their children be it state or private,bI chose this school because it works for us.

martorana they may be more impressive if you went to a bad school, but they're still impressive from anywhere. Private schools don't give A*s away. DD is already up and revising for her year 10 exams when I'm sure many DC are still in bed.

rabbit if your parents high expectations are all you have to contend with, I think you'll do okay in life.

Really it doesn't matter how intelligent a working class or lower middle class child is, the odds are stacked against them in career terms. The access to and exposure to certain social networks is what gives private schooling the edge. It creates a microcosm of advantage which is so tough to break into - it creates it's own social signifiers which immediately single out the interloper.

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/10412144/Private-schools-are-blocking-social-mobility.html

Which brings one ineluctably back to private schools, those highly resourced, highly skilled and ferociously dedicated blockers of downward mobility. What has been thoroughly documented – including by Michael Gove in a memorable speech last year – is the quasi-monopoly by their alumni (many full of I+E) of the leading positions in life. What has been far less highlighted is their success, as both formidable exam machines and sophisticated social networks, in preventing the nice but dim, or even the nice but indolent, from moving downwards.

"martorana they may be more impressive if you went to a bad school, but they're still impressive from anywhere. Private schools don't give A*s away. DD is already up and revising for her year 10 exams when I'm sure many DC are still in bed."

Word- I am absolutely sure you know exactly what I mean.

Have to say WordFactory that for once I agree with Martorana - your achievements are more impressive than those who had their educational path facilitated. Does n't stop me feeling very proud of my DCs' efforts at school though even though they have never had to fight for an aspirational education.

ubik I dunno.

I think there has been a degree oif downward mobility. Some parts of the middle class now find themselves nouveau pauvre.

They can't access the same things their parents could; private school, Oxbridge, large homes, early retirement.

And they seem to fall into two camps.

Those that are in denial that it matters and cleve to their MC indicators, believeing that those things will be more than sufficient to return their DC to their rightful place in society.

And those that can see that however nice those indicators may be, without the back up of cold hard cash, they're not that handy. They tend to vociferously against the advanatages that private school and wealth can give. Though, of course, not so vociferous against all the advanatages they can give .