To have though of a fairer way to fund state education than VAT on private?

[wlakaaf]

State schools are in desperate need of funding.

Money needs raising.

Instead of sticking 20% onto private fees - when those people are already paying 100% of the costs for educating their child, how about this:

Parents of children currently in state schools ought to contribute to their education on a means tested basis. There would be no argument over means, it would be a simple reference to the council tax band of the house you live in. We have bands A-H. I would propose that people in band A-F pay nothing. People in band G pay a fixed charge per year and people in band H pay a higher fixed charge per year.

Keir Starmer has used money to buy a massively expensive house, worth in the region of £2m, in the very tight catchment of a lovely state primary. This is buying privilege, same as buying private education. So why does he get away without paying?

@Bigcoatlady surely part of the issue we are going to have at the moment are Secondary schools taking on former private school pupils, as many of them are coping with a bulge.

There is a rural private school in my local area that might be impacted by this policy and close. 'Great' news for the rural village schools in its vicinity as may help improve their numbers, although lat east one of these schools might close in the near future before the private one, so that might prove difficult. But the state Secondary might not be able to accommodate the senior school pupils

@Ariela well that sounds like it will fix @RedToothBrush problem of schools being undersubscribed and having to close. Everyone's a winner.

@crumblingschools again the bulge years between 2008-2012 varied massively btw urban and rural areas and that's precisely why its an LEA level issue. I think birthrates may still be a problem for fee-paying schools as they are geographically concentrated in cities where they compete against other fee-paying schools and the state sector. IF there are fewer children to attend that increases competition and will mean the less financially viable fee-paying schools will struggle - VAT will add to their financial vulnerability.

But in terms of local planning - if and when students move its only LEAs that can decide when and where to offer places to children whose parents decide to move them from the fee-paying to state sector. That's always been an issue. When the last fee-paying senior school near me closed a few years ago it went bankrupt during the summer term - yr 11 children literally had to resit GCSEs and relocate to state schools which weren't necessarily using the same exam board to do so. The LEA did manage to relocate 400+ kids into new school places by Sept, they were v unhappy obviously but that wasn't the LEAs fault.

If short-term state secondaries are dealing with bulge years and have to take on more former fee paying students thats going to be a blip that doesn't last beyond 2030, after which we'll be entirely into the years when birthrates declined. At a guess it will be concentrated heavily in the home counties and some outer London boroughs. But nationally its neither a reason to oppose or support this policy, its just a practical issue to take into account in implementation.

I'm not sure what you're proposing.

Are you saying that when parents who would have chosen private now choose state it will help state schools to improve, since they're not 'deserting the ship'?

That's unfortunately not true, since parents who send their kids to private school are already subsidising the state more than they would be if their child was in state school, because the state doesn't have to pay for the child's school place.

As I said before, best estimates show that even with this policy bringing in 20% VAT, if more than 10% of children switch to state, then this policy will cost the state money rather than make any money.

Some people say that schools will improve when private school parents join. But that's crazy. 7% of kids go to private school. If 10% move across (ie zero financial gain from the tax), then a 3-form entry school of 120 students will get 6 private school kids across the whole school (ie across 7 years - less than 1 per year) . What can those 6 famies do that the families of the existing 840 children can't?

If every single private school kid moved across, you'd get 8 private school kids in that year of 120. (and it would cost the government an extra £8 billion across the country each year to educate them).

Yet somehow, you expect those 8 families to somehow have enough money to fix state school for the other 112 families?? Whilst the 112 families whose children are actually at the state school stand with their arms swinging?

I know it's lovely to think that 'someone else's money' can fix it. But it can't. If we want state education to improve (which I support) then everyone needs to put their hands in their pockets.

No but you might vote to improve things rather than say I'm alright.

I don't think many people base their voting on 'I'm alright' despite the prejudiced stereotypes.

Personally, my main priority is a party which I believe makes good economic decisions. Because I think it all comes down to the economy: being able to have state spending on schools, hospitals, disability benefits - as well as all of our standard of living - it all comes down to good management of the economy.

You might have a different opinion than me as to which party makes better economic decisions. Or you might think that something else is even more important than the economy.

But it's pretty rude of you to suggest that my reasons for how I vote aren't as good as yours.

it’s not true that only 20% of the population are net contributors.
It might be true that they are net contributors to tax, but that’s because the economic system we have is so fucked up.

A factory owner isn’t really the net contributor. They don’t produce anything. It’s the workers who produce the profit, and it’s not their fault if they don’t see any of it.

I agree with you.
Education should broaden our minds in all areas.

Just for your hippy trippy mindset
You, I think, would like Steiner schools and the Rudolf Steiner philosophy of teaching.

A fun example, children are set by four temporaments based on their character and nature ( not academic ability ) . A busy bee moving all the time, strong willed, leaders but moody if they don’t get their way are choleric.
The choleric colour is red like fire.
Kids in this group will therefore be in a classroom that is painted in washed tones of a colour the opposite side of the colour spectrum ie greens
This balances nature, calms but also works on potential weak points ie sensitivity.
Steiner schools are not interested in competition but personal development and do lots of crafts and activities outside the ‘normal’ curriculum.

Grades don’t tend to be high as that’s not really there thing but success in personal goals are.

re. Your last paragraphs whilst I completely agree education should be available at all ages and of course University is, however…….
I will admit, and I’m going to be slammed for this I know, that once someone reaches an age that they could never possibly expect to pay back a student loan (40 plus maybe ) then they shouldn’t get one. There are many retired or near retired people who decide to do a degree, get a student loan but never go to work to pay it back after. I think this has to stop I’m afraid. ( I feel I’m going to be completely trashed for that one 😳)

👏👏

Exactly!

Good management of the economy for WHO?

The term net contributors, however, is an economics term based on £££££ only.

Which I am clarifying.

Well no it’s not down to the actual producers in the factory.
Its down to paying more in in ££ terms than receiving back
Both could equally be doing that but how and what they do for a living is irrelevant in terms of whether they are net contributors.
A small % of the population, as such, are net contributors.

Net tax contributors, as we said.

But this does not mean, as some are taking it to, that they are net contributors to society. Let’s compare a nurse and a hedge fund manager. The hedge fund manager is a net contributor by its usual definition. However, this term disguises the fact that the hedge fund manager creates nothing, improves no one’s life and does little more than inequality.

In real terms, in terms of what each person contributes to society, the nurse is absolutely the main contributor. The hedge funds manager siphons of wealth earned by the labour of others. They are only contributing in the terms of the rigged system which is already stacked in their favour. The nurse does not ethically owe them anything - the debt is entirely in the opposite direction.

If you are earning enough so that you pay more in taxes than you consume, you are still taking that money from somewhere, and that somewhere is, at the end of the day, usually from the poorly paid labour of others. People would do well to remember this.

That’s a moral argument.
Contributing to society and how each and everyone does that has nothing to do with NET contributors.

It’s purely a financial term

This is true, but if you see the post I quoted earlier, some people are using it to make moral judgements.

” Unfortunately, the bulk of the 80% think they are being a raw deal somehow “ is the quote I was responding to. That poster was implying that the rich are doing the poor a favour by earning more than them!

Getting, not being.

Right?

Here’s a quick list of high paid jobs, all worthy professions without labourers doing all the work for them whilst they cream off the profits.
Lets also not forget entrepreneurs who create jobs as well.
Every society needs a mix and most societies have a mix of those that are financial providers and those that are not.
After the introduction of the welfare state there has been a reduction in net providers

I think you're suggesting that the economy is a tug-of-war between 'the rich' and 'the poor' over who gets what share of a fixed amount of money.

It's not really. Think of it like a pie. Everyone gets a slice of the pie, and there's a certain amount of arguing over how big everyone's slice is. That's taxation and government spending (including benefits).

The trouble is that how you divide up the pie will either make it shrink or make it grow. And how much each person gets does depend on how big the pie is: a smaller slice of a bigger pie may easily be more than a bigger slice of a smaller pie.

So the question is how to divide up the pie in the optimal way: so that it grows as much as possible (so that there's as much as possible available to share out), but with everyone getting enough and with people feeling reasonably happy about fairness.

Right wing parties are more concerned with growing the pie, even if that means some people get a smaller slice. But if you go too far to the right, some people don't have enough or feel it's unfairly shared out.

Left wing parties are more concerned with dividing up the pie equally, even if that means the pie is smaller. But if you go too far to the left then the pie gets so small that everyone has less pie (and in the extreme, no one has enough).

Everyone will have their own ideas about where that balance should sit.

I would say that good economic management is about how good a government is at growing the pie. Social policies (how the pie is shared out) are also important - but they fundamentally depend on there being enough pie to share out.

And in turn those poorly paid workers are being supplemented by the public purse in the form of universal credit so they have enough to live on and house themselves without anyone needing to pay them more and profit less from their labour. No doubt it doesn't count though if you're feathering your nest at the tax payers expense, as long as you launder it through a poor person.

You’re talking about trickle down economics as though it’s a proven theory, when it’s very far from it.

Very much this.