Can you be a leftie and use private schools? Are people prejudiced against the privately educated?

[SpoonsAndForks]

I've always been into equality of opportunity and on that basis, think that it's wrong that our country allows private schools.

But then my son's state primary went into special measures and I pulled him out and put him into private school. Now he's being offered a really great scholarship to stay on and I'm considering going private all the way. So I'd rather private schools didn't exist but now they do, yes I'd like my child to benefit from them.

I came across this book yesterday - www.amazon.co.uk/Posh-Boys-English-Schools-Britain/dp/1786073838/?tag=mumsnetforum-21 - the intro to the book sets out the 'public schoolboy' as the most horrible creature, misogynistic, egotistical, generally a posh hawhawhaw uncaring horror (usually a nasty MP). Yet the intro also sets out some interesting statistics about those in top jobs always being from private school (which makes me want to give my child that opportunity). But makes me sick at the thought of educating my child into a guffawing posh MP.

I'm keen to explore:

• whether you can sit politically to the left and square it with yourself if you use a private school
• whether children who go to private schools will experience judgement and prejudice against them
• whether children who go to private schools are all at risk of turning into posh uncaring brash misogynistic MP types.

Impossible to square it with being a state socialist i.e. belief that the state should provide and run everything.

Think it’s possible to square it with being a left libertarian or anarchist or non-statist socialist, but only with private education of a certain kind. So sending your kids to Eton wouldn’t fly, but a Montessori education possibly would.

The crux there would be about the nature of the education- not wanting any child to be educated to be canon or factory fodder, for want of better terms. So it would not just be about being a “better” I.e. higher quality education, but a different education e.g. more free thinking, more freedom of expression. That’s not the same as sending a child to the local independent day for better opportunities and facilities.

Really to make the “leftist plus private education” work in the UK, you’d also need to be actively campaigning to make education provision different - maybe some structures similar to the French healthcare system. So maybe an education system where the state (helps) to pay and regulates standards/charging/insurance/is provider of some specialist services but doesn’t actively run universal provision itself. But definitely for an education system where there is real freedom of choice backed by a decent level of equality of access for all. Otherwise it’s just going to look like hypocrisy.

So it depends not just where you sit on the “left-right” axis, but the “authority-freedom” axis. And in the “passive-active” axis.

I think private school "socialists" are fairly safe in their argument that they will use a state school when they meet their ideals, because those ideals can never, ever happen.

Very well put Irma and very true

I think you can get far more diversity in some private schools than some state schools.

Here, we have mostly white wc parents, all working in the same area in the same type of jobs, hardly any diversity at all.
Any black, Asian or European minorities follow exactly the same culture, working in the same places

Compare this to my dd ss private school with a world wide catchment area, then you get diversity. Lots of private schools attract people from all over the world, accept their culture, and the children likewise.
I've never seen even one child round here trying to learn a different language to include minority groups.
How many of you in state schools are teaching your children Polish or Romanian? They are having to learn English though.

I live in a grammar area. When it came to picking a secondary school for DS, I had half a dozen grammars and 4 non selective schools to choose from. This amount of choice meant that we had the luxury of shopping around and finding the best fit for my child.

I'm not convinced that one size will ever fit all when it comes to schooling.

Well golly, I can't think of many private schools that are teaching Polish or Romanian - Russian, yes, but not those two languages.

I don't agree with either state education or state healthcare. Both education and healthcare need to be removed from the realm of the state and financed by private insurance. However, this private insurance may be state subsidized.

My son just started a new school this tearm hejust had his report it says less then expected progress in core subjects for writing but on attainment in core subjects he working towards expected standard in writing for both. He in year 3. What does it mean please

Firstly I said parents, and secondly I used the word some
My dd school the kids sort their own language clubs and include every language of every child.

My dd said she was being taught Japanese by a child, I asked what she was teaching the child her reply Wiganese

The children embrace other languages and would hate somebody to feel left out, more often than not the children speak very good English, but the kids are brought up to be inclusive.

Compare this to my dd ss private school with a world wide catchment area, then you get diversity.

Here we go again, someone trilling about diversity at their dc's private school. Yes, but they're nice diverse people, not nasty horrid poor ones. Learning Polish or Romanian indeed. Well, just let your dcs hang out with the kids of the cleaner or the bloke in the car wash. Oh, wait, is that an attack of the vapours you're having?

I'm not sure, but I think that Gilly's DD is one of the poorer children at her school and her fees are subsidised. (Apologies if I've got that wrong Gilly).

I suppose that if you are rich and a lefty, you could choose a private school that heavily subsidises a significant number of poorer pupils.

Irma

WTF are you going on about, until last week I worked in a call centre, we have one old banger for a car, and we are low income.
However, yes, some of the Russian children have parents who are oliagarchs ? I can't spell it
Some are white mc, some are inner city sink estate.
There was a Prince from somewhere abroad not long ago.

Although my dd school is unique, my dh used to report similar when he started his career teaching at other private boarding schools.

forgot to say, one of dd friends sp mum is a cleaner.

Oh for crying out loud, gills, you know that your daughters circumstances and her school are not like other private school and private school pupils and it is ridiculous to pretend they are.

FWIW I do think that private schools should not be VAT exempt. I also would support an increase in income taxation rates for education. There are huge gaps - thinking underfunding for those pupils with SEN, underfunding for technical education, underfunding for tertiary education, underfunding for music etc etc. The whole story of state education is one of underfunding,

But I'm not going to apologise for sending the DC's private. They look like caring sensitive individuals to me. But i might be wearing Mum-goggles, who knows. I very much doubt either of them would ever vote tory or turn into a tory MP. But who knows!

My DC private schools (ALL of them) had full bursaries for the poorest of the poor in the local area; they also had many middle class subsidized by Dear Grand Parents; they also had rich; they also had multi-millionaires (and at least one billionaire if you believe the Times rich list). How many multi-millionaires are in the local state school? Proof there is actually more diversity in Private Education!
As I said before these threads are fun but in the end no one is going to change anyone's mind with mere facts!

Thesearepearls if you support an increase in taxation for education why not decide what the increase should be then donate to your local state school the extra that you would pay were this increase to be implemented

THEsonof - I'm sure there are children in state schools with millionaire parents. The Blairs are extremely rich and their children went to state school - albeit selective ones.
Greg Dyke is another rich state school parent as is Robert Harris, the best selling author and the Kinnocks, Jonathan Millar...that's just off the top of my head.

" How many of you in state schools are teaching your children Polish or Romanian? "

oh yes I often used to pick up my children from whatever after school club they were attending and go home and whisk up a little Romanian lesson for them..
are you completely bonkers?

DD has what is politely called 'a spiky profile'. One local school said they could not cater for her needs; we have seen a similar child failed entirely by the other local school.

I feel for them, they don't have the budget to do the right thing by any children that don't fit the system. We're in a county that has one of the lowest budgets per child in the country for secondary, I'm sure things would be different in London.

But we're not in London, so I either have to watch my child fail to engage at secondary, or send her to a private school which, with smaller class sizes and more money, can cope. I don't want to but there's not a lot of choice.

well, there would still be pupils with not very nice accents or who didn't really appreciate poetry or Triple Science.

I’ll bite, since you’re riffing off one of my comments (while not addressing the underlying issue I raised - pretty poor).

I don’t give a shit whether other pupils ‘appreciate’ () triple science, or in what accent they do so. I’m an immigrant so don’t have the accent obsession that seems to plague you.

I just want my son to be able to choose to study it himself, if he still wants to pursue science as a career in the future. Sending him to a school that doesn’t offer it (or probably have great depth in science more widely) seems like a really shit thing to do to him.

Choices? Pay for school. Pay for a house near a school that offers a broader range of academic subjects. Pay for tutors to increase the likelihood of a state superselective. Or the ‘non-hypocrite’ option - send kid to a school that isn’t very good at what he wants to be good at.

Full disclosure: I don’t count myself as particularly leftie, but the smugness of those on this thread who want to paint this as an uncomplicated choice for parents whose local state schools may be pretty shit at educating children, particularly when they’ve revelled in positive local choicesthemselves, is pretty grim.

Parallels with women being told they can’t be feminists because not every one of their actions lives up to high feminist principles. Some folks live in a context-free world.

Oh for crying out loud, Bert
You know that it's a fee paying school, almost 32k per year.
We pay like most other parents, you know, for the privilege and the leg up. It's absolutely no different in this respect, apart from the amount we pay varies.

fourfried

Do you not encourage them to learn through duo lingo so they can befriend those at school from Eastern Europe?
I mean considering we hear about the diversity in state schools.
It seems like it's just private school parents, the ones usually called for having no diversity are the ones encouraging their children to support minority groups.

" Do you not encourage them to learn through duo lingo so they can befriend those at school from Eastern Europe? "

there weren't any children from "Eastern Europe" at their school.

there were a few Polish if that is what you mean, but they already speak that. after a fashion.

Bertrand is all for 'stereotypes' when talking about private schools. My home address was listed as the children's home and my school as the* Girls Secondary, Modern when I entered a famous girls Public school !

Thesearepearls if you support an increase in taxation for education why not decide what the increase should be then donate to your local state school the extra that you would pay were this increase to be implemented

Choices about charitable giving are possibly the subject of another thread. You do have to be careful about charitable giving as anyone with a link to sub-saharan Africa (as I have) will testify. I have two principles on charitable giving - which are not for everyone - but I do take care about the charities I donate to (I tithe more or less).

My first principle is that I will NOT give to charities in the UK where I believe that the state should make adequate and sufficient provision. This covers charities like Shelter (even though I think no-one should be homeless) and the giving to the local school that you have suggested. I think it has to be a mistake from a policy perspective to shield the UK government from the consequences of its own decisions - it should invest and care for its citizens.

My second principle is that I will not support charities such as Oxfam who have a very high percentage of funds going to UK executives and administrators. Oxfam has of course now an additional problem in terms of the people that it employs.

So the charities that I do support tend to be charities that have a low percentage of admin cost to delivering real good.