How did Diane Abbott justify sending her son to a private secondary school?

[Bubble99]

After all of her rants about parents who pay for private education?

Ditto UQD - that's exactly it.

yes I agree unquiet dad: I would send my dds to a grammar or private like a shot with no hesitation: but then I have not ranted publicly against the existence of grammars and private schools! it is a tad disingenuous of them.

Gobbledigook - it's me you have cut and pasted - just saying that it's great having principles in the abstract (mine aren't old enough for secondary yet) and recognising that it can be hard sticking to your guns when it comes down to harsh reality. I hope I will but I also hope I won't cut off my nose to spite my face.

Maybe they just hoped that by the time they got to that point with their children there would no longer be any kind of "social experimentation" because there would be greater equality across the school system? But when they got there, it wasn't as rosy as they had hoped - question is, have they continued to critcise the choice of others in the light of the choices they have now made?

good point hannahsaunt. I don't know the answer. But if they did believe that, it was hugely naive.

Re Fiona Millar - fail to see how being a school governor at the school wouild benefit her kids more than any other kids there. AS far as I can see giving up hyour free time to try and work to improve a state school that your children attend really is walking the talk.

I am a school governor too

Agree re: Diane Abbott though

Is sending your children to a comprehensive school really still considered a "social experiment"?

I am rather a supporter of Fiona Millar myself.

Tony Benn and a lot of others sent them to places like Holland Park comp and quite a few of those children now grown up are not that keen their father sent them to a school on principle like that which wasn't the best education he could afford. Didn't Paul McCartheny's daughter complain later about her father forcing them all into the local commp when they could have gone somewhere better (and with others who were on their income level)?

Presumably the best solution if you're labour is to have the family living in the leafy constituency so you avoid the bad inner london state schools.

I've never heard the Benn children complaining about their education.
Your snobbery is quite breathtaking at times.

I couldn't find a reference but this is interesting..

"In 1964, Tony and Caroline Benn decided to move their children from Westminster preparatory school to Holland Park comprehensive school, one of the first in the country. From then on, Caroline, who was to become the chair of governors at Holland Park for 13 years (and, at 35 years, the school's longest-serving governor), devoted a great deal of her time and energy to the subject of comprehensive education.

She was president of the Socialist Education Association, co-founder of the Campaign for Comprehensive Education and a member of the Inner London Education Authority (1970-77). With Professor Brian Simon, she wrote Halfway There (1970), a report on the British comprehensive system, and she followed it up with another co-authorship, with Professor Clyde Chitty, on the same subject, Thirty Years On (1997).

Yes, I knew Caroline Benn had been active in campaigning for comprehensive education, it was mentioned in her obituary. That's why I was pretty sure their own kids had been to one.
Why is it especially interesting?

Tony Benn is the same as Fiona Millar - on the face of it, he sent his kids to a Comprehensive school but he backed it up with private tuition.

So?

domini connor..love your summary of diane abbot and i agree too....

Can't let that go, I'm afraid - she's certainly not stupid, but her politics are up the spout. There's quite a big difference. Opportunism is not the same as stupidity.

I quite like Diane Abbott. I don't think she is stupid. I think she was scared for her son at the local school and was in some ways very brave to backtrack knowing she would be (understandably) villified as a hypocrite given her previous uncompromising political stance. I think race is a valid issue here too. Black boys are failed by the education system more than any other group and I do think having a terrible local state school (if it is) and a black boy would make for a lot of difficult decisions even for a champion of state education.

Must admit that learning that she chose J Aitkin as her boy's godfather (hadn't heard that before} has slightly lessened my opinion of her though!

I find the "Fiona Millar is cheating because she is a governor" comment staggering!

I have a lot of time for Dianne Abbott and share a lot of her views and admire her as someone who does not feel the need to toe the party line. I did not know about the nurse thing though.

I can empathise with her situation as it is hard to stick to your principles when they come to your own kids, I have always been a passionate believer in state education until my own dd came along and I was put under pressure from just about everyone in my family and my circle of friends to put dd into the private sector. I put my feelings to one side after being told by me ex that I was putting my airy fairy politics before dd and that he would make my life very unpleasant if I sent her through the state system and I took dd to look around all the local private schools. I admit to being relieved that she didn't like the first few we looked at and was keen to stay with her friends at the local primary but she fell in love with one school and begged me to send her there.

I stood my ground for a number of reasons

1. I don;t agree with private education
2. Dd had a place at a good state school
3. I did not feel it was right for me to teach in the state sector and educate my child privately.
4. It has been in my mind for a while to pursue a career in politics when I have more life experience and I knew it would be hypocritical to be a socialist mp and use private education.

Every now and again I get a twinge of guilt whenever I pass the private school in question or I talk to colleagues who send their children there and I hear what my dd is missing out on but I think I have done the right thing and I hope dd understands when she is older.

I am sad that Diane Abbott made a different decision to me as she is a political role model for me, but I can understand it.

Twinsetand pearls.... you express your views eloquently and i respect what you say. I'm interested in point no.3 though - you wouldn't feel it right to teach in the state sector and educate your children privately. That's exactly what I do, and I'm just intrigued as to why you would be uncomfortable. I divorce the two things totally: one is my career, the other is a personal choice for my children. If I chose another career - solicitor, engineer, whatever, I don't think this would even be raised as an issue. Do you feel that no public sector worker should educate their child independently? I'm just interested!

twins, interesting though that the father and you didn't agree - whose views ought to prevail on education? Why did hyou have a right to decide and not him? Why if she and her father wanted the school weren't you out voted?

unfortunately most public sector workers don't get paid enough to educate their children privately, although there is a higher proportion of teachers children amongst scholarship and grammar school entrants

Is there not a point where you question your own principles ?
If I found that one of my principles didn't actually work, I'd give it up. Obviously in the great scheme of things no-one really cares what principles I have, but it matters when someone is in a position of power.
My issue with these politicians is not their departure from previously held positions, since changing your mind is necessary for personal integrity.
However, I worry about their ability to think in any useful way. They lack the self-analysis to try and determine what is the right thing to do. I don't agree with the faux-socialist hatred of private education, but it is a position one can have without internal contradictions. But if you find these contradictions but can't deal with them by anything other than shrugging your shoulders then something is clearly wrong with the way you think.
That's why socialism died.
It simply could not be made consistent with the world as we observe it, and in particular cannot cope with people, which is a bit of a bugger for a political system.

Re Diane Abbott.

The point about being a "champion" of non-selective state education is surely that you take the rough with the smooth.

You can't just like it only if you happen to have a decent comp on your doorstep. If your local comp is a rough one, that doesn't give you an excuse for backing down. If you're such a champion of it, you face up to it and try to change it for the better.

Only to admit to having your views challenged when they start to affect your own children is so near-sighted, and surely should make one start to question NOT whether they are right for your children, but whether they are right per se.

Playing the black card is not good enough. I would be hypocritical to support comprehensive education, while claiming that my DS would suffer in the local comp as a middle-class white boy who prefers reading to football.

I bet dozens of people came to her MP surgery with problems relating to school admission. I wonder how sympathetic she was.

Just to show I am not bashing any particular political colour - when we were trying to get DD into the local school, the only people talking any sense in correspondence to us were our local Lib Dem councillor and our Labour MP at the time (now retired), Helen Jackson.

You are quite right, unquietdad. The decision to send her son to a private school certainly irredemably undermined all her previous arguments. In sending her son privately she clearly stopped being a champion of state education, for all the reasons you cite. Nonetheless, I still think there is something human and likeable about D Abbott (maybe because my dad used to fancy her!) and it was rather brave of her to u-turn so publically, imo. I also think the evidence base for black boys doing badly in the state sector is rather more convincing than that for white middle class boys who like reading doing similarly badly, unless I have missed some key research.

I also think that it is possible, without contradiction to think something like:

1. I believe passionately that good local state schools are the optimum solution for all children
2. I would like my child to go to a good local state school

and:

1. The local state schools are not good enough for any child

therefore:

1. The local state schools are not good enough for my child

and in conclusion, therefore:

1. (I am not powerful enough to singlehandedly change the local state schools so) I will not send my child to a local state school

Many many mumsnetters I like and respect immensely have argued similarly. I think everything hinges on 3 and 4 myself. I think if you genuinely believe 3 and 4 (and thresholds on this are completely different, imo, depending on your visions of a good enough education, your family circumstances etc etc) you probably have a moral duty to get your own child out if you possibly can, even if you also believe 1 and 2. I think Dianne Abbott changed her mind about her local schools being good enough, basically. I do agree that she was certainly very hypocritical in that she'd previously preached extensively that 3 would not happen if everyone sent their child to the local state school (which may be true) and then did not do that herself. But I am quite admiring of people who take the flack for big mistakes. Though I suppose if she'd resigned her MPship it would have been even more admirable.

Middle class thinking about the current education system reminds me very much of game theory, depressingly. If it is held that a prerequisite of good state schools is that a majority of middle class parents in the area espouse them for their children, then every person who chooses to go private makes it more problematic for the next person with a choice to choose state.

I think the only solution to that comes when schools say, as my local schools do, in fact, "we want to and will be great schools whether or not we have a significant middle class intake" and if the middle classes continue to reject us, well, it's their loss.

You put that with clarity and grace, Scummy.

I'm agreeing with Unquietdad and for the second time on this thread with DominiConnor.

It's amazing isn't it how people are full of good advice before they have any experience of the subject of that advice.

When the boot's on the other foot suddenly they begin to see ....