WHY the general assumption that private schools are better?

[tootsietoo]

I know this is similar to other recent threads, but slightly different!

I know very little about education - never worked in the sector, don't have many friends working in it, never been interested til children arrived! However, in my limited experience (DDs 6&7 at local primary school) the level of professionalism of the teachers is impressive! There seems to be such a comprehensive structure for planning progression and for assessing children's attainment, whilst the teachers seem to have the freedom to work with the children to inspire them in that they choose topics which interest them and can tailor classes and working groups to match children's abilities.

Yet within my group of friends there seems to be this inbuilt assumption that if you ever can pull enough cash in then off to private school your children will go. I also frequently read on here that the existence of private schools is unfair because it means only a few children will have the best opportunities. Which seems to assume that all private schools offer the best opportunities.

Is this a hangover from the 70s and 80s when we all grew up? Were state schools much worse then? Why is it just assumed that private schools offer the best education? I know private schools have more money therefore usually have the glitzy facilities, but surely it is down to the person standing in front of the children day in day out who is the really important part? I recall that at my small private girls day school I experienced the most inept teaching methods imaginable and I am told that at private schools today there is no requirement for teachers to be qualified! I do appreciate that my children are at a good school (that is, classified by ofsted as "good"), but are they all that unusual?

[HercShipwright]

In this case it wasn't that, no. :)

[Thumbwitch]

Actually Martorana (and I'm coming back to this after a couple of days because I've been travelling) - the OP did ask if state schools were much worse in the 70s/80s, when we grew up, and is this why there is this assumption that private = better than state. So my post about my educational experience, and that of my peers, was entirely relevant to the questions asked in the OP. Sorry you found it to be unimportant but you aren't the OP.

[cressetmama]

I have so enjoyed reading this thread and I am very sad you have all run out of steam! I think more (sadly not all) schools are actually better now than in the 70s/80s because a) there's general recognition that we need a more educated workforce because there's no longer much demand for ditch diggers and fewer professional occupations offer articles or on the job training to 16-18 year olds; b) politicians meddle more and broadsheets are obsessed with education league tables; c) a much higher % of DCs now consider tertiary education essential and their due -- in both private and maintained sectors (see point A); d) information on any topic you can name is available to everyone with an Internet connection, e) and all schools have facilities that would have been unusual in the 70s. My single sex selective girls school did not have any heating in much of the building FFS! There has been a mahoosive expansion among "universities": not all of them can be Oxbridge or even RG.

What really altered the landscape was the loss of the 11+. Once every school child took it, and agreed, it was not the perfect way to assess academic potential. But nowadays the alumni of public/private schools dominate in a way that they didn't years ago when there was a clear pathway for the ablest children, more or less regardless of family means. Even then, it was not unknown for the oldest son to go to the grammar, but not others because it could not be afforded, and (I have been told) because the family was reluctant to sacrifice the wage that would have come into the home after the child left school -- at 14 or 15.