Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 5

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Starting a continuation thread in anticipation of the fourth one filling up…

www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5301690-whitehall-braced-for-private-schools-collapse-4?page=39

If you don't live in London, how are you so sure about what people there can and can't afford? It is totally feasible that a family with a sizeable mortgage on a pretty normal family house is unlikely to afford three sets of London school fees on top of a mortgage on a combined salary of £200k. Not even just in London, look at Surrey house prices for example.

What is the obsession with London and having three kids? I used my friend as an example who doesn't live in London and has two kids. She can afford to send them to the local private school and still have a fantastic lifestyle. If she lived in Chelsea and had 10 children then undoubtedly things would be different in terms of affordability but that's irrelevant.

The policies aren't London specific, they are nationwide. Like it or not, wealthy people in the UK are actively choosing state schools over private schools and using the money saved to fund other luxuries. I know this for a fact! The income threshold for affording private schools in London may be higher but I would be absolutely shocked if people aren't doing the same there.

Maybe because I live there and have three children so it's an example I can talk about with experience. No one is talking Chelsea. My economics would apply to Wimbledon. Okay so your friend can afford private school. Doesn't mean you can assume everyone can with the same income.

I think my point would remain that if you are in a household that earns £200k then you are in the top 2% of UK households. Should you be getting your children's breakfast funded by the state?

Someone earning considerably less than £200k could be forking out for their kids to go to private school because they have been effectively failed by the state system. Why should they not get a breakfast provided by the state when the high earners with children going to desirable state schools that meet their children's needs get it for free? Why should the private school parents be subsidising parents who could easily be wealthier than they are?

The system is messed up. It's built on the premise that private schools are inherently always a superior and more privileged option than all state schools. It completely ignores the inequality built into the state system that favour the wealthy that live in nicee catchments or can plough money into 11 plus tutoring. As I mentioned upthread, I have a foot in both camps and can see first hand how unfair and badly targeted the policies are.

The platitude I was contesting was that everyone on a 200k family income can easily afford private school for their DC and if they don't it's just that they prefer to spend on holidays and cars. It's inaccurate. Who deserves breakfast and who pays for it is a completely different point.

Why not offer up more tax instead of this VAT policy since you can afford it and the sector you used would benefit?

It’s easy to go on about other people paying more when you have the ability.

Feel free to offer more rather than offering someone else’s payment

I never claimed that. It obviously depends on circumstances like how many children you have, where you live, other outgoings you may have etc. I used my friend as an example as she is someone I know well and obviously lives in the same area so know about the cost of housing and school fees etc. She goes on lots of fancy holidays and drives lovely cars. Good for her, I don't begrudge her of this but it's madness to suggest she is more deserving of free breakfast clubs than other friends I have that send their kids to private school out of perceived necessity rather than choice. They would much rather save the money on the fees and they are on a hell of a lot less than my £200k friend.

I guess my broader point is that it can be a privilege in itself to be able to send your child to a state school that you are happy with and meets your children's needs. It's totally possible that due to the nature of the child or the schools available to you that you don't have this privilege and feel forced into the private sector. The irony that you are then called privileged, undeserving of any state assistance and actually required to fund those who are lucky enough to find a good state funded fit for their child!

Not offering anyone else's payment. And I will do what I like regarding what I do with my money beyond paying my tax bill.

I don’t think that. I am, and did.

Wow, Curlew, you’re posh and rich! Alright for some……

Yes it is. I am very aware of my privilege.

Ah yes you are not a VAT supporter. Sometimes your posts don’t align with that. I couldn’t care less what you do with your money as long as you don’t push for higher taxes for other people whilst not offering to pay more.

@CurlewKateis the VAT supporter (and posh and wealthy). There must be room in the coffers to pay more tax rather than other people.

I'm not saying that your position is perverse, @wishingyouenough I'm saying that the people taunting kids on the way to school because their parents are rich - and contribute financially to society, including the taunters - are perverse.

Is that really helping the cause?

People respond to threats with "fight, flight, appease or freeze".

You say that I'm misinterpreting you, but to me it looks a lot like you're trying to appease the haters.

You'll never appease them.

See above that a single parent working full time with 2 preschool kids is better off on £19.5k NMW than earning £101k, once taxes and benefits are counted. And still they want to take more.

And the many, many comments on these threads insulting private school kids (poshos, thick, entitled etc) and hoping they suffer when they have to leave their schools.

I'm totally done with appeasement.

I am always pretty clear that I don't support VAT on fees. I am only critical when it all gets a bit hyperbolic. No lack of alignment there. Perhaps you are mixing me up with someone else. If you know I am not a VAT supporter, why were you suggesting I voluntarily pay additional taxes?

How do I feel? Really, really angry.

We're in-group when it comes to squeezing tax out of us to give to other people.

But out-group when it comes to giving a shit about causing harm to our kids.

I work full time and I don't need Starmer's breakfast clubs. Neither does my neighbour who works part time and sends her kids to state school.

What I want is for Labour to stop deliberately destroying our schools without the slightest care about the harm they are causing our kids. Private school kids should matter to Labour too.

It’s certainly a strange world where I’m paying for cornflakes for the children of people who earn vastly more than my household income, because my disabled child’s needs couldn’t be met in the state sector. It is what it is and I’m paying the tax.

Same here. It’s madness on the part of the government and will be much more expensive to the taxpayer in the end doing it this way. As well as seriously harming some individual kids and their families.

We appear now to be in some sort of looking glass world where state school parents are all far richer and more privileged than private school parents. We seem to be going back to the bad old “Anyone could afford private fees if they stopped smoking and paying for Sky” “We don’t have holidays, we just chuck the tent in the boot of the battered old Volvo and drive to Cornwall” days. I’ll come back later.

This is a bit late to the game, but there were some previous questions about the actual income distribution in independent schools. There are data on this.

Strawberrybubblegum posted a link to a graph that is widely used to answer these questions, but it's not the most useful way to visualise the data. It shows the proportion of children who attend independent schools at various levels of income, but because the proportion of children at independent schools is quite low anyway, it's impossible to see the variation.

In this Medium post, Diarmid Mackenzie uses the exact same data, but presents the information in a more logical way. I encourage anyway to read the actual post, but here are Mackenzie's main takeaways:

Approximately half the families that use independent schools are in the top 10% by income. Yes, lots of wealthy families send their children to independent schools. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
But what about the other half? There’s a roughly three-way split:

• A third of them are in the 2nd income decile, earning incomes between the 80th and 90th percentile. The “not quite-so rich” rich.
• A third of them are between the 50th and 80th percentile. These are families whose income is above average, but not particularly wealthy.
• A further third of them have below average incomes.

If Labour were serious about reducing child poverty the first thing they should have done was remove the two-child benefit cap. It would be the most effective way to lift hundreds of thousands of kids out of poverty.
Why, then, are they focusing instead on breakfast clubs which are poorly targeted and will entitle dual-income middle-class families to an earlier school drop-off on their way to the office, and a free meal that they don't need?
It seems clear that having painted themselves into a corner by promising no rises in income tax pre-GE, labour can't fix the things that need fixed, and are instead trying cheap, populist parlour tricks - things that will generate some media attention and buy them a few votes but don't cost that much, are poorly targeted, and do little to address structural inequalities.

Why can't there just be schools? Acknowledge that families of all backgrounds and financial position want the best for their kids. And those who have the ability to "donate" tax free to their local schools to improve them do so. If you can't support this concept then you are elitist and looking out for your own at the expense of others who don't have the same "privilege". Because a two tier system is always them and us and is always about privilege (even if that is privilege of opportunity for those on bursaries) I think the whole thing needs reform. Ready to be flamed!

Because then politicians wouldn't be able to use children as political footballs to sway the electorate?
The Tories whipped up class hatred and tried to pit "working people" against the "feckless poor" who had more children than they could afford.
Labour are whipping up class hatred and are trying to pit "ordinary people" against the "snobs" that use private school.
Both cynical attempts to manipulate the electorate and media. Morally bankrupt, the lot of them, and I'm glad I didn't vote for either.

Excellent post, shame they won't read it as it doesn't fit their narrative.

This is the world where "posh and rich" people crush the dreams of a black child who lost his father, rob him of a school place won by years and years of incredibly hard work and sacrifice, force him to beg door to door to continue his education - all this while they dress in white togas and preach about social justice from their imaginary high moral ground.

Absolutely crazy.

@curlewkate - sure, come back when you can justify why a university-educated, single parent of 2 pre-schoolers living in a rented flat in the suburbs has more disposable income if she earns £22k NMW than than if she earns a £101k salary.

And when you can justify the social impact of that policy choice.

If you can refute it with evidence, then that will also do.

You’ll need to expand on that one a bit….