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.

WEF - Finland tops their table.

NJ MED - do some interesting research. Finland tops their table, the U.K. does well and the Scandinavian countries perform well.

NCEE - they rate Canada.

The issue with ranking education is it depends what you value. Is it just raw stats or do you include other factors?

The most interesting country in reference to the U.K. is Canada. They were performing quite weakly and then introduced a series of reforms and they focus on equity and well being. They now do very well in the PISA rankings. Canada has a very multicultural society and experience similar issues to the U.K.

The Finnish and Canadian experiences indicate working to educate the whole of society benefits all of society.

Moussemoose not trying to be harsh but I have some questions about your metrics.

If this is the WEF table you're referring to, it's a survey of expats' experiences, so I'd be suspicious about how relevant it is to the entire countries since expat packages often include private schooling or similarly generous educational allowances.

Also, the NJ MED rankings look rather unstable; the 2017 Final Poll puts Finland in 8th place, 2 places behind the UK while the most recent update actually rates Finland 10th and the UK 2nd!

Finally, does NCEE actually rank Canada first or was it just first alphabetically in the list of top performing countries? Admittedly, the UK doesn't appear on the list at all.

My apologies if I'm looking at the wrong reports. If so, would you kindly provide links to the relevant ones?

Education tables that consider 'education systems' are unstable they are not like the PISA tables that rely on data.

If you want metrics and raw data PISA is your best bet. Even the PISA rankings are questionable because the tests are based on local systems and these vary. This is not up to scientific standards. You can't prove much, but you can look for indicators over a period of time.

I read widely on the subject and have mentioned countries that frequently top a variety of tables and studies. The U.K. performs solidly in some of these - as I keep on saying -we educate bright children well in the U.K. The U.K. does extremely well in relation to higher education.

Our issues are systemic and we fall behind when you look at how well average to below average students perform. Also, we do poorly on happiness indicators - although I can't remember the actual studies that showed that.

Reports on the WEF -

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/11-best-school-systems-in-the-world-a7425391.html

Also, www.businessinsider.com/wef-global-competitiveness-report-most-educated-countries-in-the-world-2016-10

NCEE doesn't rank which is why I said they "rate Canada". Canada is the up and coming education system in the world at the moment. It's the one everyone is talking about and studying.

Basically, you won't find one definitive report with a definitive ranking.

If you read several reports you will find some countries appear regularly in the top ten. Finland. Singapore, South Korea and these days Canada.

The Scandinavian countries do extremely well in terms of student happiness. However, I don't think anyone in the U.K. really cares about that.

Glad to hear it Spoons. I don’t know why you made this decision but it’s morally right (or left!). You have to be brave and strong to follow through if you have had doubts but your son will learn from that in itself.

I wonder whether private schools (on average - I know there are bad ones) offer a better quality of education than 'good' State school systems in places like Finland or Canada.

The Scandinavian countries do extremely well in terms of student happiness

and seemingly also at the general population level

worldhappiness.report/ed/2018/

Although both Finland and Sweden have suicide rates way higher that the UK - as indeed do most other EU states. ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/DDN-20170517-1

Given at the school level our (England at least) obsession with league tables it is no great surprise that our system manages to leave a lot behind

Entirely anecdotally some people who went to grammar or private school seem terrified of 'the masses'. Saying they can't let their children go to state school because they are like zoos.

Grammar schools are state schools.

Generally, Germany with it's 11+ type system does not do well in educational tables. The government has identified this as a source of concern and Germany does now seem to be doing better.

famousfour my opinion...

One of the reasons everyone is looking at Canada is that the system is working for everyone. Private schools and top state schools in the U.K. are not dissimilar in results. A good state school is as good as a private school in the U.K..

State education works well in the U.K. where it is done well. I know I keep banging on about this but it is the disadvantaged areas that are the big failing in U.K. education. The thing Canada and Finland do really, really well is the educate the whole population to an excellent level.

I would choose a Canadian school over a U.K. school every time in terms of education. However, in the U.K. that would not offer any social advantage.

Yes Grammar schools are state schools, that's why I said "grammar or private school".

The point being people who went to Grammar schools regard 'the masses' with the same horror as people who go to private schools. People feel they were 'saved' when they passed the 11+ and didn't have to mingle with the great unwashed.

Most of the people I know who went to grammar had siblings or other close relatives and friends at non selective schools. They often mingle with the great unwashed. Although that's not how they describe them, preferring the terms brother/sister/cousin and friend.

I'm sorry I should have said "some people who went to grammar school".

Moussemoose fyi, the WEF Primary Education rankings are driven principally by the responses to a survey of business executives in each country, in this case to the following question:

Quality of primary education
In your country, how do you assess the quality of primary education? [1 = extremely poor—among the worst in the world; 7 = excellent—among the best in the world]

Objective measures such as primary education enrollment rate also factor in but, in practice, make little difference at the top of the rankings since all the top 20 countries have in excess of 99% enrollment (with the UK being slightly higher than Finland).

So, what the WEF ranking tells us is that Finnish businesspeople are the happiest in the world with the primary education system in their country. Any further conclusions are inferences.

Its quite funny I was one of the 'great unwashed' at the modern school I attended . The kids could not make me out , well spoken but living in a child's home ! To make matters more complicated, my uncle used to pick me in his 'Rolls' from that school …. It was even suggested to me that was my 'pimp' on a couple of occasions by 13 year old girls from the school !

The rudest 'nastiest' and snobbiest (oh yes modern school girls think they are better than girls living in children's home). Conversely at the well known girls boarding school, nobody picked on me for my time in care.

I wish people would stop using 'stereotypes' to further their opinions .

He was my 'Pimp'

Having read through most of this thread on a long day’s journey . . I’m struck by the vehement dislike of those with right-wing views towards those they perceive of as hypocritical lefties. Which actually means all lefties, but especially middle-class/mumsnetter ones . . . Gosh are we outnumbered here, and well done Bertrand/Mousse/Soursprout for holding ground against those for whom anyone professing concern for or interest in the wellbeing any child who isn’t close friend or family is apparently deeply suspect.
Maybe the mumsnet mob has a point and we are all, deep down, deeply selfish; you right-wingers at least admit it, while lefties just cover it up with a veneer of “hypocritical” do-gooding . . . Interesting thing to me is that the dislike really isn’t mutual; we lefties think you’re wrong, of course; short-sighted and mislead, but we really don’t despise you the way you do us . . I’ve not been around mumsnet education for so long, but I can’t imagine Bertrand laying into you guys the way you do, en masse, to her. . . What’s more you make it personal, digging out in passing what you know about her family history in true tabloid style. I doubt she’d stoop to that herself.
With regards the OP, in the end it’s her choice . . yeah, principles are a luxury, and we will all compromise them, or abandon them completely, at some hypothetical pressure point. It’s a question of circumstance and degree; their strength will determine where you draw the line.
Personally, never mind the cost, I think using private education would make me positively unwell; but then I’d also be stricken by the prospect of a child of mine miserable at school – any school. I’m so relieved I don’t face this dilemma, not yet anyway, and touch wood not ever, and I recognise that as my good fortune.
I don’t think in terms of abolishing private schools. I’d just like state education to get so good they’d seem irrelevant, or just for losers! It’s not an impossible utopia; I do think private schools increasingly struggle to justify themselves, as traditional class hierarchies crumble. It’s far less of a big deal nowadays to socialise or even marry outside your social class (or race) than it was even when I was young. My impression is that, far from wanting to keep the riff-raff at a distance (once their main point) many private schools are now at pains to introduce their sheltered pupils to “real-world” people . . And that’s why so many private-school parents on here are so quick to trumpet their school’s “diversity”. . .
Yet by definition they educate an elite, selected by wealth if not academic ability. The non-wealthy are kept at a tiny minority and selected at least in part for their willingness to conform to the general (moneyed) culture. God forbid that they should ever admit a critical mass of pupils from non-privileged backgrounds!
The main problem I can see with left-wing principles at private schools is that it must be hard to maintain them once you have a vested interest in a socially-selective education system in which your choice has the advantage . . . Mixing with state school families must become tiresome, when you feel under constant pressure to justify yourself, so I expect in the end you’d just give up, and retreat into a private-school social bubble. And before you know it, you’d be bemoaning the “discrimination” against the privately-educated at university, and the fact that you are unfairly paying for a whole bunch of scroungers’ kids’ state education as well as (through the nose for) your own! At very least the fees should be tax deductible, non?!



That last post was me failing to paste a really interesting chart.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/09/countries-with-best-education-systems/

Anyway, this is the link to the WEF study with all the interesting stuff in it including the PISA rankings. Hope this helps expat.

I'll say again all education studies are inherently flawed, you need to consider a variety of studies and methodologies over a number of years. Consistently, Singapore, Finland and recently Canada stand out.

Marytuda I would like to get to a situation like Canada where people want to send their child to the local state school. Unfortunately, I think the competitive culture in the U.K. means people want to do better even (or especially) if that means others do badly.

we lefties think you’re wrong, of course; short-sighted and mislead, but we really don’t despise you the way you do us

Really? Could've fooled me.

marytuda I think it's the lefties who are concerned about hypocrisy. The 'other side' are concerned with recognising reality over ideology, and making choices that turn out well. And yes I do mean well for all children, not just our own - but recognising the reality that we have a stronger responsibility towards our own children, that it's reasonable to want to spend our resources on them, and also that our choices will affect our children more significantly than impact society as a whole.

I hate ideology. I think any time you make a decision based on how it conforms to a theoretical concept, rather than thinking through all the genuine consequences, you're going down a dangerous road.

I did mention Bertrand's hypocrisy, but it was as a way of pointing out the logical flaws in her thinking, rather than out of concern for her principals! Both sides obviously think the other side is wrong

I saw more despising and moral judgements coming from the lefties towards the private school parents than the other way around:

• You said yourself "I think using private education would make me positively unwell". None of the private school parents have said anything like that - merely that they think private school is right for their children, and that they don't think it's wrong to use it.
• You also said private school parents would feel we are "unfairly paying for a whole bunch of scroungers’ kids’ state education as well as (through the nose for) your own!". No-one I know feels that way. You've just made that up!

Strawberry bubblegum-thank you so much for mentioning my hypocrisy and for pointing out the flaws in my argument! I am a changed woman.

Saying using private education would make me feel unwell is just an imagined description of my probable feelings in a hypothetical circumstance . . . as modest a criticism as you can get really. It doesn't assume anyone else would or should share the sentiment. As for "unfairly paying for a whole bunch of scroungers’ kids’ state education as well as (through the nose for) your own!" - I may have elaborated/updated a little ("scroungers" was not really a thing back then) but this was definitely a common sentiment round where I grew up: a middle-class but state schooled child living in the shadow of one of the poshest, most expensive schools in the country - to which my parents' best friends (at devastating cost to themselves) sent their daughters as humble day-girls. Lovely though the family was, they couldn't conceal their indignation at having to pay via taxation for my-and-siblings- education along with their own kids (they really were no better off financially than we were, just had fewer kids and more, um, snob-issues). How dare all of us get everything for free like that!!
This experience - of being close but clearly inferior to some v rich (and famous) kids (and others not so rich and famous); kids I saw every week but rarely spoke to, has obviously informed my views in later life. FWIW I'm still in touch with one of those humble day-girls; still friends, though not v close. . . We did rather drift apart over the years I became an 80s anti-Thatcher radical while she raked it in as a champagne-swilling, foodie merchant banker! She secretly hated banking though and really wanted to be a musician, which she could only afford by marrying an uber-wealthy colleague - who then turned out to be utter arsehole . . A story for another time. However . . . .I'm sure private schools have moved on in many ways but I'd very very surprised if that sentiment ("why should we contribute to education of a bunch of slackers/not get tax rebate for not using state education") didn't persist in a lot of private-school quarters still. Maybe they'd just never say it in front of you.

Marytuda. More 'stereotypes' being stated !

I repeat the biggest 'Snobs' I encountered were at the * 'Secondary Modern School for Girls'. Then again having gone to three completely diverse schools Grammar Modern and Public school . I know how wrong stereotyping is. It does not represent reality.

Not sure what you mean letstalk but stereotypes or not, my stories are all true! Just a little dated maybe.