will someone scold and spank me and remined me I am a stubborn socialist guardianista?

[twinsetandpearls]

I have always made my feelings clear about private schools but the family has been working on me again and have ordered a proespectus for a private school that I have been idly flicking through and I have fallen in love with it and even - and this is a big deal for me - looked at the website.

For me this is a huge step and I am feeling sick with guilt, so guilty in fact that I have just re planned all my lessons tomorrow for my classes as some kind of penenance.

I need other socialist guardianistas to take me in hand.

TSAP - good luck with your pondering. It's a tough one.

if you've got the money, do it. I have, and I will when the time comes and I too am so called 'Guardianista' with a leftist, working class heritage. I will go private if need be for both my dds and I care not a fig for what other people think!

I also agree with alycat - a lot of the way the children 'end up' is down to parental influence.

It's only a tough decision if you have the funds. The decision, frankly, is made for us, as we can't, at the moment, afford to pay twice for DD and DS's education. If we could, we probably would. In my experience, people who loudly sing the praises of the state sector are those who have been lucky enough to get into one of the top schools.

Well, I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum from a socialist guardianista, but I am adamant about sending my children to public school. In fact, I moved 6000 miiles (back to the usa) to make sure that they could go to a good one. I think that having children in an environment where there are different types of people from different backgrounds (racially, socioeconomically) is one of the best things you can do for them. It teaches them tolerance and stretches their minds in all sorts of healthy ways.

sofia - you are using "public school" in the US way I assume (as in not private school).

Dinosaur: JINX!!!

I would be interested to know if Twinset would be feeling equally guilty if she was considering getting her child into a good state school by some means such as moving house.
I can't for the life of me work out why buying your way into a good school through moving to a more expensive area is morally worse than buying it directly through fees, but many of my friends who are implacably opposed to the latter would happily do or have done the former.

Drop the guilt, try to ignore it.

Have you got plenty money?
Why will it be better for your daughter than state? Be clear

The main thing is, if you choose private you MUST drop the guilt.

oh I meant morally better, not worse, sorry

Kathy - bit devil's avocado of me, but I suppose there are other reasons for moving and not just the school. The fees just go to the school whereas the mortgage payments help cover, supposedly, a variety of advantages.

I agree with you, though, that those who decry independent education while ensuring they have jostled themselves into the very best state schools are on dodgy ground.

Dinosaur, I've seen various studies like that (though not that one). Some also say that a kid who is put in a group that he's smarter than, will do better.
These two results are not entirely contradictory...
At one level, all of us are buying into good schools. Although we have about the most ignorant kids in the developed world, that itself is a minority. The Average British kids gets a better education than the average African, Indian or Chinese.
I don't see that distance is of itself an ethical principle.

UQD - that's quite a thought - why is it supposedly ok to buy other advantages but not education?
And if it is not ok to pay school fees is it also not ok to pay private tutors or fees for evening classes?

In practice, I imagine, a lot of people try to get a house in the 'nicest' area they can, with the quality of schools being part of that.

I suppose private tutors etc. are seen as complementing rather than supplementing state education.

Private education, on the other hand, is a bold statement. If your friends decide that the local school is not "good enough" for their kids when you are already sending yours there, it can't help but seem like a judgement. Even if it's not intended that way.

Interesting question re other advantages. is it because we see it as acceptable to "buy" through mortgage an area with a decent playing field, good bus services, shops etc, but the idea of education as a purchasable commodity still sticks in the throat a little?

Having said that, I'm totally hypocritical, because I would do it...

It's because you English can't stand the concept of being seen to aspire to anything like success or greatness or wanting a better life for your children. We American have no guilt about these things and find your English anguish very perplexing and/or amusing.

Why is it better to use your wealth to buy better food for your kids, but not education ?

SofiaAmes, the reason I didn't say that British kids were the most ignorant in the developed world was of course be the lowest achieving ones are of course native born Americans.

Also I don't see the point of "aspiring" to great things for kids if you fail to achieve them. American social mobility is lower than for any country for which any statistics are available.
Indeed a parents "aspirations" for their child may well be threatened by the catastrophic level of neonatal deaths in the USA. The average is worse than many 3rd world countries, and some US cities "lose" more babies than some countries who are at war.

Why do people assume that private education is automaticall better than state? I am seriously baffled by this - yes there are fabulous private schools, but there are also dull, mediocre, ordinary, average, weird, damaging and downright bad. Just like the state sector really........!

sofiames - Perhaps we feel like that because we see that society will benefit from all children getting the best possible start. No, it's not always acheivable and the reality is usually far from the ideal, but I'm not sure that scorn is the right response to that.

I don't want my children to be successful and wealthy if they are then surrounded by a sea of disadvantage and poverty. That doesn't make for a happy life IMO.

Well, surely there has to be that assumption on the part of the parents doing the paying. Else, why bother?

flyingmachine - I'm not sure that is always the case. There is a huge amount of snobbery imvolved sometimes. My parents simply would not have considered state education if the very best state school in the world was on our doorstep. And I don't think they are alone in that.

It's a non point. YOu pay to feed the children well, as said below and presumably gave them good genes and listen to them and love them well which are huge unfair advantages. if you want to even everything out take drugs and lock her in a room for 6 weeks. Of course you choose the best schoo. If you didn't you would be damaging yuour child,

But what does her father want? It's very morally wrong for a mother and not a father to choose the education. We don't own our children and they are the children of both parents.

Trying to think what Catholic girls schools are good though...www.stmaryscalne.org/? I am not sure they really on the whole do that well in school league tables and for cleverer children you'd probably find mostly they are better off at a good academic school. The Catholic ones are not really known for good academic results. Also boarding is not necessary and more damaging that if you had her at a day state school but that's an entirely separate issue.

Paying for education is ok. All this manipulation of state education and dividing it into hierarchies is much less 'morally correct' if you view these things in moreal terms