What's going to happen to state education?

[user380968]

Just received an email from my child primary school about budget cuts and asking to make posters and put them in social media on Thursday. Is this really going to help? Last year we had some protest and went on tv; I guess politicians just ignore them.

Is state education likely to disappear in the UK in the future? It is very sad, teachers haven't had increases for awhile, etc, etc. What's going to happen to our children future? The gap between rich and poor will get bigger and bigger; Is this country going backwards? Education and health are the most important things for a country future in my opinion.

I have 2 friends state school teachers and their kids are going private for secondary school; my conclusion is that they know the challlengest state schools face better than anyone; they did however got involved massively in trying to make their children state primaries better and helping with findings.

What's going to happen with this country?

What I'd really like to do is turn this thread around and ask, what's the future of Private education? That in a way was the point raised by a v interesting thread here recently along lines of Why Go Private in London (if state schools are really as good as people say)?
It is true that current education cuts are putting new pressure on state schools but the fact remains they have been transformed, massively, for the better since I was at one of them in the 1970s.
It is also the case (talkingpeece above) that universal state primary and seconday education is the hallmark of a civilised (developed) society.
And in other European countries in particular, the quality is such that there really is no point in paying for private education except in very exceptional circumstances. The privately-educated, far from representing an elite, tend to be looked down on, believe or not, in some European countries I am told.
This was the great postwar goal of universal free-education policy here too I seem to remember - state education would be so good, hardly anyone would see the point in going private any more.
Well, for sure, we are still a long way from this (witness the vast majority of posters on mumsnet education threads.) But the fact that it is a reality elsewhere in Europe proves that with the right government commitment it is achievable.
And I do believe that despite all recent stress around curriculum etc, with the help of Ofsted we were moving in the right direction here in the UK as well.
Trouble is it looks like "austerity" might have called a halt to it now.
However even the dreaded Michael Gove once expressed the laudable aim to one day be able to go into any school and not be able to tell whether it was state or private.
And surely, if that ever came to pass, no-one (except maybe the really super rich) would bother forking out a fortune any more?

Our school spends all its state funding on teachers and buildings. The barest essentials. everything else is paid for by parent donations and a lot of fundraising by the middle class parents with the time and skills to do this. It’s utterly dependent on this and I imagine that schools who don’t have that cohort of parents must really suffer.

It’s utterly dependent on this and I imagine that schools who don’t have that cohort of parents must really suffer.
And you have just explained why schools in poor areas get poorer results

For Londoners trying to understand the Brexit vote .....
poor areas are the hardest hit by Austerity
their schools are run down
their hospitals are run down
their social services have ground to a halt
and the nature of council tax means that the authorities CANNOT raise enough to cover the bills.

Austerity is causing the problem.
And its a totally ideological standpoint with no shred of economic value.
If the income tax rate went back up to what it was under Mrs Thatcher, schools and the NHS would be properly funded
Tories hate it when I remind them of that

We're already being asked to make financial contributions to my kids' state school. So IMHO, it's already not completely state-funded. It's only a small amount but is clearly the thin end of the wedge.

I think we'll end up with a two-tier system where in more affluent areas you'll get schools with better funding and facilities that parents are expected to pay for, and in other (less affluent) areas, you'll have schools run on four-day-weeks and that kind of thing just so they can afford to have enough teachers in on school days to run the school safely.

The whole thing makes me very sad.

The problem is that council support services have all but disappeared ! How can you aim for quality music, sport or special needs provision in schools is there are no longer the music services, education support teams etc. My music service is one of the last remaining for many miles! Once these services are gone it will take many decades to build them (& a rounded education system) back up again

Getting the right teachers means that state schools can flourish. It’s not all about money.

Getting the right teachers in is all about money. Teachers leave (largely) because of workload. As funding is cut, more work is pushed on to teachers to make up for the lack of support students are getting. Increasing class sizes increases teacher workload. Many good teachers are leaving not because of their own salary necessarily, but because of the knock-on effects of budget cuts.

It seems like it'll go the way of many European countries and largely America with schools, where parents have to buy all school books and supplies. It's not surprising that the book publishers then insist that the 'correct' edition is used in schools so books can't be passed down onto other kids and are very expensive.

Getting the right teachers means that state schools can flourish. It’s not all about money.
How can a school in budget deficit get the right teachers without money ?

In the USA, school funding is fully localized.
Rich areas get good schools. ~ Poor areas get bad schools.
SuperZIP areas get amazing schools

And then Americans wonder why they do so incredibly badly in the PISA tests
And others wonder why top American Universities are full of imported students

There are problems with over centralised government in the UK but fair funding of education is not one of them.
If only the UK government would decide to fairly fund all schools.

Lots of interesting comments. Thank you

I certainly don't think last year's protests were ineffective. Many feel the publicity around funding cuts was a contributory factor in the Conservatives not gaining a majority. Certainly the NUT (as then was) ran a stunningly successful campaign.

People will make their own decisions on whether they want to join in the protests but I certainly wouldn't write them off as a waste of time

Perhaps schools might do better if they stopped buying iPads and interactive whiteboards, and stopped driving teachers to the wall by demanding they invent every lesson themselves from scratch, and brought back textbooks instead. Textbooks which were handed down from year to year, instead of the workbooks that get used once. Stop wasting money on daft consultants peddling educational snake oil. Stop adopting PFI contracts which bleed the schools dry.