Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 4

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuing the discussion about the impact of VAT on independent schools…

See above. It’s not my opinion.

Not sure where you get the ‘reduce funding per head for state schools’ bit though. I haven’t said that.

i’m not sure that argument holds water because we see raised housing prices above the norm encircling the best state schools and grammars and religious schools until that financial barrier effectively dictates the catchment areas of the desirable local state schools. Those ‘desirable’ high achieving state schools usually have a way narrower social mix and way lower proportions of free school meals pupils than do the more averagely achieving state schools.

In some areas of London the housing mix means you can get vast extremes of family wealth and poverty living in the same street but in many areas of the country you will get clusters of households of more similar income brackets grouping together and therefore an intake at local schools that reflect that.

https://ifs.org.uk/news/mixing-better-educated-families-improves-life-chances-lower-income-children

I wonder if this kind of study could be where some of the think tank assumptions are being backed up with, that have underpinned reports like the original IFS ‘VAT on private schools fees’ cheerleading report.

In the UK context this study on Norwegian kids education and higher education/incomes later in life has significant non-similarities though:

Oxbridge isn’t the only ‘elite university’ here in UK (I’d include the whole Russell group in that bracket) yet just those two are used as the exemplar to make the UK parallel seem even more extreme and unequal.
And in Norway higher education is free and we know that student debt is a huge deterrent to lower income families in the UK

and in Norway, there are no private schools.

https://ifs.org.uk/news/mixing-better-educated-families-improves-life-chances-lower-income-children

@SabrinaThwaite It follows though, every child educated by the state costs around £8k per year so if we’re pushing children into the state then the budget per head reduces.

‘Green has been more focused on ways of closing the funding gap between the state and independent sector - which doesn’t involve the government increasing state school funding.’

If I’m understanding correctly, this means simply levelling down independent schools? With no improvement for state? Wouldn’t that fit the description of spite?

Where have you been @SabrinaThwaite? You have got to be the only honest poster in favour of education tax. I’ve been saying the policy is driven by spite, envy and stupidity since the beginning, it’s taken a while but at least we now agree. I’ve enjoyed talking with you.

What a lot of assumptions you’ve made @FairMindedMaiden

Where have I said I’m in favour of Green’s suggestion?

I have provided an opinion piece that identifies a potential reason for the policy - it’s not driven by your Four Horseman of the VAT Apocalypse, and nor are Green’s ideas. Both look at ways of increasing socio-economic cohesion in schools and reducing the wealth driven attainment gap.

ETA: And, just to be clear, no, I don’t agree with you.

Going back to the original IFS VAT report on private schools report in 2023. I’ve been reading their press release:https://ifs.org.uk/news/removing-tax-exemptions-private-schools-likely-have-little-effect-numbers-private-sector

IFS is a tax and public policy think tank and not an education think tank
The funders of that IFS work by the flatmate/best man to look into the question of VAT imposition on private schools was the Nuffield Foundation, a think tank on education, that perhaps did not want to overstep their area to make their own report on the VAT plan.

The Funder’s comment after all the claims in the press release written by the IFS author/bessie mate seems MUCH more restrained:

‘Josh Hillman, Director of Education at the Nuffield Foundation, said:

‘This timely analysis shows that the combination of levying VAT on fees and the tax exemptions associated with removing charitable status from private schools would raise a small but potentially worthwhile sum of money for use in state education. However, to make a significant contribution to reversing the widening gap in achievement between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils, a wealth of other research suggests it would need to be spent carefully on well-targeted funding streams and evidence-based programmes and practices.’

This timely analysis shows that the combination of levying VAT on fees and the tax exemptions associated with removing charitable status from private schools would raise a small but potentially worthwhile sum of money for use in state education.

That sounds like imposing VAT alone which is what has happened is NOT be able to raise the ‘small’ sum.

And that wealth of other research suggests that any theoretical new income stream raised *would need to be spent carefully on well-targeted funding streams and evidence-based programmes and practices’ in order to
‘make a significant contribution to reversing the widening gap in achievement between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils.’

So the government is relying on a non existent windfall coming from VAT that won’t come so all this is moot- we know the policy will cost state schools due to more kids leaving for state including more SEND pupils than were accounted for by IFS - but even while pretending not to be scoring that own goal, this government is not even promising to target the money raised as the Nuffield Foundation states would be necessary.

Every school theoretically would get 60p to spend on cornflakes and 0.5 of a teacher per school. The whole thing doesn’t have any evidence behind it and is therefore it is just going ahead on political dogma. That’s a terrible basis for government decisions that disrupt kids’ lives.

I thought we agreed that the policy is about damaging independent education choice to push children into state schools and not raising revenue to improve state schools? Have I got the wrong end of the stick?

Sorry correction- Nuffield Foundafion funds research on Education, welfare and social justice. Not just education

I’m surprised that you’ve jumped on Green’s statement that The VAT could raise fees by an estimated 15%, which over the long term would shrink private school pupil numbers by between 16,000 and 41,000 pupils – or between 3% and 7.5% of the sector, thereby causing a small proportion of private schools to close given that these threads are constantly updating the ‘unprecedented’ numbers of children leaving the independent sector and the ‘unprecedented’ number of school closures.

Well, I quoted that, so I'll respond. Green acknowledges that some schools (a minority, number unspecified) will close and that tens of thousands (up to 41,000) will be forced to switch schools in the 'long term' (which I'd take to mean 3-5 years). Green is probably telling the truth as he sees it. There is significant uncertainty over how many will leave and over what time period. All serious estimates acknowledge it's likely to be over 30,000. The internal treasury figures estimated 54000 while report by Baines-Cutler and EDSK considered figures of up to 25% or roughly 140,000. The government's internal forecasts suggest 100 additional schools will close (out of a total of about 2500) whereas the independent schools bursars association puts the figure at 286: taking these as lower and upper bounds suggests somewhere between 4 and 11% of independent schools will close. All of these are serious insofar as they're trying to quantify a scenario with significant uncertainty.
What's not serious and not truthful is a labour leader who says there is "no evidence" that this policy will cause schools to close and who dismisses the tens of thousands of kids who will be forced to move schools as "very, very few" while accepting freebies from a millionaire labour donor to ensure that his own son's GCSE's are not disrupted in the slightest. That is mendacity and hypocrisy.
As far as "unprecedented" goes, I didn't use the word. In the 70's and early 80's successive governments' closure of grammar schools caused the largest growth in private schooling for several decades: the percentage educated in private schools rose from roughly 5% to 7%, where it has stayed ever since. The current government's policies are deliberately hostile to private education, designed to shrink the sector as much as possible, and are causing the largest upheaval in 50 years. There is no precedent in British history for a deliberate attack of this kind on private schools (we'd have to look to Greece - and look how that turned out). So "unprecedented" seems accurate to me.

I should clarify that the first paragraph in my previous post was a quote from the post of 08:56 today, and the later paragraphs are my response to it.

It also seems worth saying that socioeconomic advantage drives both higher educational attainment and attendance at private schools. So assuming that transplanting a handful of private school kids into a state school will magically raise attainment is correlation-causation fallacy. What's more likely to happen is that you'll harm the attainment of the kids that were forced to move school (because moving schools is in itself one of the most damaging factors on attainment - see the research I mentioned upthread) while leaving the attainment of the kids already in the school at best unchanged, or possibly lowered due to larger class sizes and an overwhelmed SEN department.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/nov/private-schools-lose-gcse-results-edge-after-socioeconomic-adjusting

No doubt this is what Labour wants to be able to say "see those rich kids didn't do better at state school!" - not taking into account they've been hugely disadvantaged by having to move, leave all friends, drop certain subjects not offered in state and possibly travel further every day for school.

What a total mess and utter race to the bottom.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/private-school-scholarships-scotland-labour-tax-fee-rise-qv7wvh788

a perfect example, announced this week, of how the policy will make private schools more elite on the basis of wealth only (because the kids who'd otherwise have attended on bursaries and scholarships can no longer do so), while the socio-economic mix of surrounding state schools will not be diversified because the kids who'd otherwise have attended the private school on bursaries but will now be attending state didn't come from rich families to start with.

Pull the ladder up, Keir.

I was just reminded of Starmer pre GE, in June last year.

Sir Keir Starmer has said there is "no evidence" private schools will be forced to close due to Labour's plans to impose VAT on them.

How did he get it this wrong?

How did he get it this wrong?

He didn't get it wrong. It's a lawyer's answer (aka a lie, in most people's eyes).

They had been told that it was likely that many schools would close. But there was no evidence.

In the same way that I have no evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow: just an expectation based on my understanding of physics and my experience every morning.

The data for that ucl research report comes is from nearly 10 years ago…

“In the study, published in the Cambridge Journal of Education, researchers used longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study – looking just at the England sample – to track information including family income, parental occupation status, home ownership, gender, ethnicity and geography, along with GCSE performance in 2016/17.”

Not sure it’s relevant to today, post covid and even further reductions in state school budgets. Bizarre set of data to base things on?

Are you saying @Lebr1 suggesting "It also seems worth saying that socioeconomic advantage drives both higher educational attainment and attendance at private schools" is incorrect?
Not sure why you quoted me.

There is so much research on the disparity in state education. Some light reading linked below.

IF this policy was about increasing the socio-economic mix of state schools and outcomes for poorer kids, you’d have thought gvt policy would look at implementing some of the 2 pages of recommendations set out by the Sutton Trust - they haven’t.

I suspect all the well-meaning middle earners that “could afford private but choose not to” live in areas enabling their kids to attend one of the top 500 schools highlighted in this research or maybe even one of the “top 150 comps that are more socially exclusive than grammar schools”

Private closures will have a huge impact on low income bursary recipients who are less likely to reside in a good catchment, nominal impact on middle earners who may live within a good catchment and 0 impact on the uber wealthy who will just pay the VAT.

We’re in the middle group and my daughter will start yr 7 this Sept at a small Free School with an intake of 90 each year and excellent results. There were 182 kids that were refused a place that don’t live as close as us.
Who loses? Not us, but the kid that lives in a neighbouring area whose much-wanted place my daughter got over them.

https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/selective-comprehensives-2024/

https://www.suttontrust.com/school-admissions-dashboard/

They could easily introduce a mandatory amount of FSM places in all schools to take priority in Admissions to bypass some of the effect of the buying into catchment stuff. It would be very easy to implement. Let’s say a school has 40% less FSM than local area - then they should have to give priority to a set amount of FSM kids. It need not be at a full 40% rate, of course. Many grammar schools have already introduced pupil premium places (so much lower pass scores for them); grammars cannot just take someone who has not passed though, because the children may not keep up with the pace of teaching in a grammar school. I think studies will be done on children admitted to grammars under pupil premium criteria, but it is such a small percentage overall (as only 5% of kids attend grammars).

However, I would also caution too much pressure as regards the above, because the catchment system means people still live in diverse areas, even if they are moving into catchment to socially segregate their own DCs school experience. If policy went too heavy on this, many people with means would just all aim to live in “naice” areas only, avoiding pockets of deprivation altogether. Which would lead to even more social segregation in towns/villages/certain counties only.

And let us not forget that some poorer people specifically do not select comps for their DC that they perceive as being too middle class either or too posh. So the selection, in the real world, works both ways. I would set FSM priority places at 7% or so and take it from there. A reasonably low rate, but could raise aspiration for some families and then increase aspiration for more families in due course.

That does seem like a good way to remove the huge amount of segregation in state schools @araminta1003

How about also:
1.Going back to requiring all faith schools to offer a (significant) percentage of places without faith criteria

2.Requiring all schools with a 'last distance offered' of less than say 1 mile for primary and 2 miles for secondary to change to a lottery system for all kids within that distance.

Wouldn't affect everywhere, but in areas like London where Last Distance Offered for the favourite schools is a few hundred metres - and enormous house prices - it would make a big difference.

Those changes would reduce social segregation not only at the extreme of FSM, but also with a healthier mix right across the spectrum.

And as an extra bonus, making these changes is completely in the gift of the government, would be almost free to implement, and would come in gradually with no disruption or harm to existing students (especially if sibling priority was kept).

But no. Harm to children and cost to the taxpayer is what they chose.

@Araminta1003 I agree with most of your post, but re: the pace of teaching in a grammar (or other selective) school, I think that's one of the great myths of the UK education system. Having selected a pool of bright kids, grammar and other selective schools have those bright kids plod through the same KS3 and KS4 curricula at broadly the same rate (as non-selective schools), leading to GCSE in Y11, age 16. The local selective private makes a big deal of their top two sets taking GCSE maths a year early then doing further maths in Y11. But the top set at the local comprehensive does exactly the same.

The Sutton trust goes further than what you propose and advocates banding and ballots (the latter would mean that buying a house on the doorstep of a high-performing state school would guarantee a place in the ballot but would no longer guarantee a place at the school).
https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/banding-and-ballots-report.pdf

Personally I'd start by banning selection on religious faith by any school in receipt of taxpayer funds. I think it's obscene.

“Personally I'd start by banning selection on religious faith by any school in receipt of taxpayer funds. I think it's obscene”

I think that would be discrimination and very difficult to implement. Also church schools including Muslim and Jewish schools do well. They should admit more widely but then those going cannot complain about a religious curriculum and frequent visits to churches and praying etc - because that is what happens in proper church schools, more time devoted to RE. And non religious people don’t like that.

I am anti making kids travel long distances if they don’t want to. So lottery can only work locally with great transport links.

Fair banding, a ballot and adequate school transport is really the only way forward. It won’t happen because it needs a proper long term political commitment. But I can’t see an argument against.

So, saying "our school is not admitting you because you are not [insert religion of choice]" is not discrimination, whereas "our school admits children of all faiths and none, without using faith as a selection criterion" is discrimination?

There was a special exemption made for religious schools in the 2010 equality act, whereby religious schools were allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion for admissions. It was acknowledged in that legislation that this was religious discrimination. So schools are allowed to discriminate in a way which in every other walk of life would land someone in court. You only have to look at Northern Ireland, where catholic and protestant kids go to separate half-empty schools while the taxpayer foots the bill for two sets of teachers to see how absurd this situation is.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/16/28/2#:~:text=It%20does%20not%20allow%20faith,him%20to%20any%20other%20detriment.

The idea of any tax payer funded service being allowed to discriminate on religious grounds is really shocking. Just swapping “school” for “hospital” or “library” shows how unacceptable it is.