Impact of abolition of public schools

[daffodilbrain]

Labour want all public schools abolished - hypothetically how much pressure would this put on the state- could we afford an extra 7% in the system. Can a government really abolish them if so how? Make them
Illegal? Remove their charitable
Status and probably make them even more elite?

Tax idea is a good one.

They need to stop fucking about with these ridiculous ideas and sort out the real problems that is causing poorer people problems, namely housing and adult social care. If Labour built affordable housing in the number needed, children would not be living in office blocks and containers. Proper provisions for adult social care would free up many NHS beds. Instead they are ballsing around with populist policies that appeals to an us and them mentality, taking advantage of the current climate of division. Abolishing private schools and renationalising railways are pathetic dog whistle policies who will ultimately cause more problems in the long run.

@User10fuckingmillion a good idea for who exactly? See my previous post. Typical far left idea of bringing everyone down rather than helping them up.

I choose to send my DD to a private school. I do this as an investment in her and instead of paying into a pension. I chose to have only one child so I could do this. A pp said she scrimps to send her child to private school. That is her right, she shouldn’t be ridiculed for choosing to spend her money on education rather than other things. It’s her money she earned.
If the private school was abolished, I would not pay anymore into the system for her to go to state school as some people seem to suggest. I have nothing personally to contribute to improving the state school system. I pay a truck load of tax already, which contributes to the state education. At least I am open about paying for the education and not a left winger who talks about a level playing field who could afford private school but takes a state school place and effectively pays for the education by moving into the right area and paying for tutors to get into selective state schools.

ScatteredMama82 Im genuinely interested how would you address the problem? I don't know the answers.
There is inequality in education without a doubt not just between those who attend independent schools and those who attend state school but also between different state schools.
Do we need to tackle inequality in society as a whole; poor housing unemployment, poor parental education, etc as well as taking inequalities in education itself or do should we just focus on schools.Where will the resources come from to do this? Is it just about money. Should we as society be prepared to pay more taxes to improve the lot of everyone? Should education be a priority when it comes to divvying out extra funds what about health care?
My proposal would be to improve all state schools so that parents don't feel forced to pay (assuming you have the money to pay in the first place). Don't create a situation in which the MCs in particular feel that they have to pay to get their DCs a decent education. Is that realistic?
The wealthy elite will always choose the elite schools and everything that associated with them (as they do all round the world).
My gut feeling is that this will take a considerable investment but where will this money come from? Would making independent schools pay VAT raise sufficient funds to do this? Would that money raised be ring fenced for schools? Is raising taxes a simpler solution? If the independent schools loose their charitable status will they stop doing anything charitable whether it be moving to a needs blind admissions process or opening up their resources to others. Or would their be levels off VAT imposed on schools. Schools which are genuinely trying to be needs blind and are a firmly on the road to achieving this (ironically usually these are often the elite schools that are so despised by many) will pay less VAT than those which offer a couple of token bursaries of say 20% and let the local state educated kids use their swimming pool once a term

@happygardening I'm afraid I don't have the answer. I entirely agree that there is a huge inequality in education, within the state system and outside it. That is why we have chosen the private education route, and we are incredibly fortunate to be able to do so. I was not educated privately, but my parents made a request to get me into a 'better' state school that was outside of our catchment area and they were successful in that request. Again, I was very fortunate that they took that step. My DH was privately educated, boarding school followed by Oxbridge. We come at it from totally different sides but we both agree that private education will give our DCs the best chance in life.

I actually liked Jeremy Corbyn to begin with. His attitude that education should be free for all (including University) struck a chord with me. I went to Uni in Scotland and paid no fees, I got a grant to help with travel and book costs. Without that, my parents couldn't afford to send me and my life would be very different now. I strongly believe that higher education should be available for all, not just those who can afford it. However, I have no idea how that can be provided.

Taxing private education is not the answer. All that is doing is taking away from the children who are already there, and it won't make any significant difference to the children in state education.

My DH is in the forces, and I am constantly gobsmacked at the amount of money being wasted in the MOD. I don't want to say anything identifying, but imagine you worked for a company that had 100 buses. For the last 18 months, only 10 of those buses were actually usable. The company are paying enough mechanics and drivers to run 100 buses, but most of them don't even get to sit in a bus for months at a time as there aren't enough to go around. It's absolutely shocking.

HS2 is another one - how much has been spent on that, and will it even be completed? Unlikely.

How many more teachers or nurses could be paid with that money? How much housing could have been created? I think the Govt needs to look at spending and prioritise what most people would consider the building blocks of society. Health, education, social care. When those things work well, society as a whole functions better. That's when they will receive more in taxes, from a functioning society, and that's when they do the 'nice to haves' such as HS2.

Just my tuppence worth...

o we need to tackle inequality in society as a whole; poor housing unemployment, poor parental education, etc as well as taking inequalities in education itself or do should we just focus on schools.Where will the resources come from to do this? Is it just about money. Should we as society be prepared to pay more taxes to improve the lot of everyone? Should education be a priority when it comes to divvying out extra funds what about health care?
My proposal would be to improve all state schools so that parents don't feel forced to pay (assuming you have the money to pay in the first place). Don't create a situation in which the MCs in particular feel that they have to pay to get their DCs a decent education. Is that realistic?

My gut feeling is that this will take a considerable investment but where will this money come from? Would making independent schools pay VAT raise sufficient funds to do this? Would that money raised be ring fenced for schools? Is raising taxes a simpler solution? If the independent schools loose their charitable status will they stop doing anything charitable whether it be moving to a needs blind admissions process or opening up their resources to others. Or would their be levels off VAT imposed on schools. Schools which are genuinely trying to be needs blind and are a firmly on the road to achieving this (ironically usually these are often the elite schools that are so despised by many) will pay less VAT than those which offer a couple of token bursaries of say 20% and let the local state educated kids use their swimming pool once a term

Sorry, terrible quote failure above!

If anyone is interested in what happens when education charities remove charitible status, do look at the former College of Law (now university of law) i think the big public schools losing charitble status would be more like this.

I agree that having too many buses, projects like HS2, pointless and unwinable wars are a waste of our countries money but HS2 and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost our country about £50 billion Kings Fund state that the annual short fall in the NHS is 4 billion, Im assuming this doesn't include social care as that currently doesn't come under NHS spending, l can't find similar figures for education but it's says its 2 billion, any savings are not going to raise that amount of money.
Ultimately I suspect if we want a more equitable society that works for all with a decent health care system, high quality social care for both young and old social care and an education where all schools are desirable then we're simply going to have to pay more taxes unpalatable as many will find this.

The problem now is even state schools do not cater for those children who are not academic.

Too much emphasis is put on academic exams and pupils don't seem to do any practical lessons where the less academic might be given the opportunity to shine.

Even if you choose a practical college course post 16. If you haven't passed umpteen GCSEs you can't even get on the course.

What would Labour put in place for those specialist private schools. What about those schools that are owned by over seas investors

Are they planning on abolishing extra curricular activities like dance lessons or Maths tutoring.

No more elitist swimming lessons.

There is inequality everywhere.

Trying to level the playing field will just mean those that couldn't pay in the first place still can't pay and those that can will either send their children abroad or pay in other ways to give their children the edge

Looking at stats in the paper yesterday I was surprised by how many private schools actually aren’t charities. Can’t remember exact figures but it was way more than I thought.
It’s quite tricky to see how you’d remove charitable status from independent schools that have it. Education is in law a charitable purpose and presumably they would t want to alter that because it would hit a lot more institutions than the ones labour don’t like. Presumably they want to add some kind of additional conditions in but again how would you define those without harming other providers ... I don’t know. It’s quite hard to do without buggering up a lot of other people even labour might have to concede are doing valuable stuff.

I know one privately owned private school where the owner lives in the school building.

Taking over the school building would mean evicting people from their home

Just had a quick chat with one of my boys who is at the school that is the main target of this nonsense,he was laughing at the sheer stupidity of the various plans,,so Labour fancy going up against the ECHR do they?/ have they actually understood the legal complexities of what doesnt or does make a charity...do they really think state appropriation of private assets is a good look?
Do they really think any of this would help social mobility,if any of this was to go through why should a school that has 20% + of its pupils on an average bursary of over a 65% fee reduction and a hundred pupils on a free education continue to do so..who exactly would that benefit..?

Was the intellectual genius who thought this was a good idea the person with 2 Es at A levels who couldnt cope with the intellectual rigour of a degree at a poly,was it the shadow education minister who couldn't even manage a single GCSE,was it the shadow Lord Chancellor who failed to get her son into Eton but managed to get a place at Dulwich,the shadow home sec who sent her son private or the Wykhamist advisers?
Labour needs to realise that policies like this send out the message that aspiration is a bad thing,that really isnt a winning strategy,

I thought I heard on the radio this morning that nearly 50% aren't charities if that true then Im also very surprised.
Oliversmumsarmy Im not sure how many "specialist private school|" cater for the significantly less academic or offer specialised practical lessons as part of mainstream education a small minority I would have thought.

The bottom line? Its Eton Harrow et al; the elite schools that they want to abolish it is so obvious from this quote: ‘
"This is a huge step forward in dismantling the privilege of a tiny, Eton educated elite who are running our country into the ground."
They think it will please their voters many of whom might be Brexit supporters and are worried about the party stance on that. I can see the labour party candidate now on someones doorstep (not in my area I hasten to add we have a 27000 Tory majority),
"Yes I know Brexit isn't quite going the way you hoped but good news we're going to abolish schools like Eton get rid of those toffs who run our country and don't understand the working man"
The labour party don't care about small schools offering practical lessons instead of 11 GCSE's for Tim nice but dim.

"I love the assumption that everyone who sends their children to private school are minted."

@Zodlebud - apologies for the generalisation. I was thinking of the public schools, which charge around £30K per child, per year. Some families send all their children to the same public school - so could be paying out £90K a year on fees, for 3 children. To me, those families are minted.

It's true that public schools are more expensive and elite than other private schools. I believe public schools are the few schools which were established long before state schools existed, so have a lot more history and reputation. I don't know what the fees are like for other private schools, where children don't board, but can imagine they are more affordable, although still several thousand a year.

"I was thinking of the public schools, which charge around £30K per child, per year. Some families send all their children to the same public school - so could be paying out £90K a year on fees, for 3 children."
Defenbaker your miles out the schools you're referring to are charging £41-42K pa per child.
You're right these families are "minted" but abolishing the likes of Eton won't change that.

@happygardening - thanks for the update. That figure was given to me several years back, so I think you're right.

I agree that closing down Eton and other expensive private schools would do nothing to improve state education. I'm unsure what the answer is, but a tax on private school fees which could be ring fenced to help support state education seems like a reasonable idea. I'm not sure how we can get more people from ordinary working class backgrounds into positions of power though (not that I'm a raving red commie, but I do see the social injustice of a small percentage of lucky people having huge advantages over the majority from ordinary backgrounds). There are no easy answers, and a race to the bottom benefits no one.

My DS's are grown up now but Id happily pay more taxes etc if I thought the money was actually going to be ring fenced and given to areas that need it. As I'm now firmly middle aged and looking to the future I guess the NHS and social care would be at the top of my list for any spare money then education. But I suspect that the amount of money required to sort our collapsed NHS would mean that without a very significant tax rise education won't get a look in.

I have a friend who was given a free (100 percent bursary) place at a private boarding school because he was from a family where without the school, he would have been put into care. He is now a fabulously wealthy entrepreneur who sponsors children from underprivileged backgrounds to attend Cambridge University. He 100 percent believes that his private education made him who he became. He contributes massively in terms of tax, charitable donations and time / funds given to local charity. I wonder if he had not had this opportunity, would he have still succeeded and given back what he has along with the many lives he has changed? Not all private schools are Eton/Harrow etc and not all parents are minted. If private schools were abolished, house prices in desirable school catchments would rise even more astronomically meaning local families would be excluded along with opportunities for local children to attend these schools. Elitism would still exist...just in another form. Taxation of private schools will only affect the countless families who opt for private education above new cars/holidays etc. The state system will need to find the resources for even more pupils in already crowded schools. The super rich will find alternatives and nothing will change other than less opportunity for those who need / want it.

happygardening

I was referring to places like the French schools or the international schools or places like Musical Theatre schools or even the Islamic schools where there isn't a state alternative

Oliversmumsarmy I suspect the Labour Party will say (when pushed) that theatre/music/ballet schools etc will be exempt from any tax not many prime ministers were trained as ballet dancers as children. Ditto Islamic Schools.

Isn't there some private universities as well? I wonder would Labour be abolishing them and seizing their assets?

prh47bridge originally there were 7 but by the 1930's there were 24 public schools

Some people still only regard the original 7 as public schools. But the point I was really making is that Labour's proposal affects all private schools, not just public schools.

The people happiest about this plan will be lawyers. It appears to contravene the European Human Rights Convention which, of course, is part of our law due to the Human Rights Act.

Some people may be elitist and send their kids to public schools other may just want a better standard of education for their children and it doesn't make them bad people. It just means they want smaller class sizes, more choice and a focus on pastoral care . Sadly the state system can't offer this. All parents want the best for their kids. My dh and I pay half our income it doesn't make me a bad person or that i don't contribute to society in other ways we volunteer raise money for charity work hard and are good citizens. There are people far richer than us but I don't mind because they've probably worked harder, been luckier and earned the money. Do you want to ban private health and dental care too? Make us all drive around in the same car and live in rows of similar housing? Just so everything is equal? Life isn't equal.

Where I live the nearby private school is the biggest employer, and the boarders are the ones that keep the local restaurants and shops in business. I work in one of these local shops. We have 2 types of customers. Tourists and people connected to the private school - pupils, their parents and people employed at the school.

If the school wasn’t private then about 700 wealthy students would be spending their money on food/clothes/shoes/cosmetics/jewellery etc in another country.

So abolishing private schools will not be a benefit for my area.