Private schools charity status: Is 'nicking' poor but bright DCs from the state sector the answer??

[miljee]

as in via scholarships? Personally I don't think they should be allowed to get around the Charity Commission in this way. They're supposed to be 'of benefit to their community'- surely pulling in the clever DCs from the local state schools merely 'degrades' the state school but improves the exam results for the private school? Would we be happy with that as a solution??

But also not all of us are that altruistic. Most parents want to benefit their child. Most don't go to war or lead a communist uprising or write poetry or work 24 hour days with poor children and neglect their chdilren. Most of us do prioritise our children over other people's. That's largely why the species survives. Mothers die every day of hunger on this planet because they chose to give food to their children. Education is no different nor is giving children good food etc. We do our best for our children. Most of us are not out to benefit other childrern to the detriment of our own although a good few parents who could afford to pay to send their children to better private schools instead send them to worse state schools because they would rather spend the money on their holidays, shoes, nail bar bill etc.

"xenia, i am so sick of the local paper coverage of haberdashers. so you can afford to get your children on the the accepted list (the city) well done"
How quite sure what the above means. Most children who apply to that type of school don't get in and many do not try as they were not born with a high enough IQ so it's not really just about money at that type of school at all. Other private schools will take people of any IQ. There are a huge range of different schools in the private sector.

I believe my duty is to do what I know to be best for my children and that is good private schools, not to make the children suffer and do less well in life because of some argument my wonderful children will improve the classes they are in. A good few of my 5 will do whatever the average in a class does - they are not going to be leading people up to AAA but they might be bringing a grade average down to AAB at A level. Put them in a school where people leave at 16 and 35% get A - C at GCSE and they'd enjoy raking around there in the middle or at the bottom happy to follow the herd and peer pressure.

I said I was happy to pay twice because I can't logically see how anything else can be justified. A 5k voucher system which pays exactly for state school or can be topped up to pay inde fees would only lead to state schools being massively underfunded. Even those parents who don't give a fig about state schools must realise that poor quality education is very bad for the long term prosperity of the country.

I also think that collective responsibility is what makes society. Just because I don't use a public service does not mean I don't have equal responsibility to pay for its upkeep. This is not communism, just moral obligation. God forbid any of us should need long term care or incapacity benefit.

Does anyone know how much the government spends per child on state education at primary or secondary level?

I suspect that the amount is quite high and the reason there is such a gap between the provision in private and state schools is due to the fact that the money spent on state education is not spent in the most effective way.

If state schools were smaller (fewer than 1000 pupils in comprehensives), class sizes were smaller (particularly at primary level) and the teachers pay was higher, maybe things would start to improve in the state sector. I'm not quite sure where all the money this government was supposed to be spending on education has gone?

I am not against private education. I went to a private secondary school and am well aware of the benefits. I just think that as the majority of people cannot afford private education, state education needs to be much improved. I think the voucher system for education would be a good thing but it doesn't appear that any political party is supporting it..the tories backed down on it I think.

I think it's £5k if you include most costs.
Many state schools are fine of course and 94% of children go to state schools and 50% of children even at Oxbridge come from the state system.

Labour introduced vouchers - we got £600 a year off per twin - for age 4 - 4 year olds only which you can use at private schools by the way so the principle within a labour government is already there of vouchers!

I wouldn't want stage schools to do badly but if we had vouchers parents could spend where they choose the only loss if the private school paying parents get their £5k which if it's only 6% of children is not a huge loss.

xenia - thanks for clarifying the amount govt spends.

yes - sorry I overlooked the nursery vouchers..have sent both my children to private school nurseries and used the govt nursery grant and also childcare vouchers. The system is great and it would be wonderful if it could be extended to school age children..

ST, QC, BNN & X - good points well made. As always with these threads, the original OP is lost while we hear the bleating about unfairness, which is just not logical if state school provide just as good an education as private schools.
Is the state system inferior to the independent sector or not? Is the lack of the (despised) middle-classes the reason some schools do not perform as well as others?
At the NUT conference recently, one of the more inane comments from the GS was the illogical statement that 'as results are better in the independent sector, those schools should al be abolished'.
Actually, completely the opposite statement would be logical, if (as she did), you ignore all the factors that make the two sectors incomparable on raw results.
To get back to the OP - the concept of 'nicking' bright pupils' is odious - don't those pupils have the right to the best education they can find for theri specific needs? Or should they just be used to bump up the results of failing schools, regrdless of how it disadvantages their own education?

You really don't need the IQ of a genius to see that that's a bit of simplistic argument...

Yes, if it's truly advantageous for a child to go to private school rather than state then that's a 'good thing' for him or her.

If it's better for schools to have bright pupils because they are judged on results then it's 'good' for the private school and 'bad' for the state school that doesn't get that pupil.

The OP is not making an odious point - merely saying that the private school is doing better out of the deal in terms of results. Two totally separate things.

I was a state school teacher who sent my son to private school as I wasn't happy with the village school.

The problem for me is the patchiness of the educational spend by the government. Each child should get the same amount spent on its education from the public purse, but this does not happen. There are regional variations which come down in some cases to whether the LEA is Labour, Conservative or Lib Dem. You can find a £500 variation per child between some authorities, and if you multiply that by the size of the aver age comp of say 1400 students, that is a lot of money.

If the standards were the same all over the UK then yes, I'd be happy to send him to state school, but they're not. I paid to avoid disruption; to get more sport; to have teachers who knew who he was, not just a face in the corridor; for people to be able to tell me accurately how he was doing; for ethos and to have reinforced the lessons in manners and courtesy he was learning at home. The state system does not provide this by any means, and I know, as I taught in it.

No-one is saying that parents who use the state system are spongers, or that they don't pay tax, but those who use private schools are saying that they don't feel that the state provides value for your money. Just as I wouldn't go back to a shop that had provided bad services/goods, I won't use the state system for education until it is fairly funded and better organised.

For those who were talking about levels of income tax, yes those worse off do pay more income tax (thanks Mr Brown), but those who are higher paid, do pay more in NI, which is effectively raising their rate of tax to all intents and purposes.

Those who are worse off do not pay more tax. They pay more proportionately but they do not pay more.

I expect that the 70% marginal rate they pay hurts a damn sight more than the 51% (with NI) that my dh and presumably you pay.

I don't want to go back to the era of 95% tax on those who earn well, that would be counter productive, but I would have trouble manging on the income that some cope with; and I think that we might have the grace and courtesy to acknowledge that, and how damn fortunate we are to have the choices denied to others.

It is 41% (by the way not 51%) highest rate tax 40% plus 1% NI on earnings over the NI threshold.

Yes, but the fact is some of us pay a lot more tax than others. Neither political party is committed to reducing tax and people are being driven abroad particularly because of all the stealth taxes we have had (which admitted have often been Labour deliberately hitting the poor and those who spend on consumer goods).

I've said before my preference is £200 a week for everyone over 18 whether they work or not which you don't lose when you start to work and then a flat tax for all of 25% (or even the 10% they have in Bulgaria if we can cut back the state and state provision hugely which would be a good thing).

Hate to burst your bubble Xenia, but look at this:

National Insurance Rates

The following amounts apply for the 2008-2009 tax year:
If you're employed

• if you earn above £105 a week (the 'earnings threshold') and up to £770 per week you pay 11 per cent of this amount as 'Class 1' NICs
• you also pay one per cent of earnings above £770 a week as Class 1 NICs
• you will pay a lower amount as an employee if you are a member of your employer's contracted out pension scheme

So on that basis dh pays 12% NICs plus 40% tax on over half of his income - looks like more than 41% to me. 40% + 11% + 1%.

I would argue that Labour are using NICs as another form of income tax, as they are keeping to the letter of tax rates not going up, but not the spirit of it by raising NICs.

Again, my net salary when I worked used to cover dh's tax bill, so we were not badly off, but we could cope with a tax rise. The point is that my mum is hit by the 10% rate going as are many of the people in lower paid jobs, and we should acknowledge that life is financially difficult for many people.

scaryteacher, the 10% is only on the earnings between £105 and £770 per week, then 1% on everything above £770 per week. So the highest percentage paid will be by people earning £770 per week (they will pay 7.6%), as you earn more than that the rate will gradually reduce down towards 1%.

snorkle is right. NI is to pay the very very low unemployment benefits so once you've piad up to the £770 earnings everything above is 1%. It is disgusting the 1% was introduced because you have already paid for your benefits up to the £770 mark but it was yet another Brown stealth tax.

So for many people their top rate of tax and indeed the tax and NI on most of their income is 41%. That is the marginal NI/tax rate.