Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 6

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Continuation of previous threads to discuss VAT on independent school fees.

Your ability to build assets & wealth is linked to whether your parents did. If your parents are renting then you are less likely to buy a house.

But policies do make a difference.

Just because there are big problems to deal with doesn't mean that it doesn't matter what we do.

Sure, people get old and ill. Climate change is frequently destroying things people have built with hard effort. Children struggle with SEN.

But our choices do make a difference. Choosing to bring in 900k net migrants (that we know of) in a single year does mean that the infrastructure we have and our state funding has to stretch further. Does mean that our young people have fewer opportunities for training and work. That our newly qualified young doctors don't get training roles.

Choosing not to prosecute black economy tax evasion does mean that there is less tax revenue to spend on the services we rely on. Does mean that paye income tax must be higher to make up for the lost revenue, giving people who do play by the rules less spending money (and reduces trust in the system which causes a spiral)

Choosing to set benefits at a level which is barely different to NMW does mean that people will choose not to work. Which means that those who do work have to to work more for less money, to make up the lost productivity (again, causing a spiral of opting out of productive work)

You don't get to just dismiss these very real problems with the bogey man of Reform. No one falls for dismissive lefty superiority any more.

We get much more from our parents than money.

Correlation doesn't equal causation.

And going back to the actual thread topic, pushing 50,000 children (many from less wealthy families, a disproportionate number with SEN) from private education into state education will reduce educational attainment (in the broadest meaning) not only for them but also for hundreds of thousands of children already in the state sector - due to state resources being more stretched.

The amount of money available for the state services we all rely on will be less as a result of this policy. Both now - as the immediate cost of educating those extra children falls on the state -and even more so in the future - when that educational dip hits the productivity of all those UK citizens when they become adults. Both the ones BP regards as 'her children' and those she doesn't. We should want all of them to become as productive as possible.

@strawberrybubblegum ,

Assets aren’t just homes, they are also investments and pensions.

You are right that it is more extreme in the SE and, especially London, where I live, but house prices have exceeded CPI by about 2-3% on average. In addition, I think that there is something of a bimodal distribution here. It isn’t just London and the SE, it is basically desirable areas, the kind of places where you would generally want to live! Look at Cambridge, Harrogate, some of the nice bits of Leeds etc etc.

I think, in the context of this thread, though (2/3 or private school pupils are in London and the South East), the kind of wealth that pays school fees is hard to acquire when they have tried to abolish the economic cycle and not allowed failing businesses (banks especially) to fail.

The house I grew up in was bought by my parents in the 1970s for £123,000. Sadly they sold it before the massive 1990s and 2000s appreciation, but it is worth around £4mio today.

When we look at wealth and ratios etc and use means instead of medians it disguises a lot as a tiny proportion of the very wealthy can significantly drag the means of income and assets upwards ; at the very top, wealth growth has been extraordinary. Sadly, it is very hard to get statistics which use medians instead of means, although a combination of means and Gini coefficient is quite useful.

@strawberrybubblegum ,

‘And going back to the actual thread topic, pushing 50,000 children (many from less wealthy families, a disproportionate number with SEN) from private education into state education will reduce educational attainment (in the broadest meaning) not only for them but also for hundreds of thousands of children already in the state sector - due to state resources being more stretched.’

Given how good your posts are, this one is stretching it! There are so many assumptions behind it which are questionable. I believe the central estimate is 35,000 and not 50,000 pupils, although we really have no idea yet.

As for educational attainment, there is also little question that more motivated and involved pupils and parents will have a positive effect. Schools get money per pupil and more pupils will make some schools far easier to run, especially the undersubscribed primaries due to the demographic crisis. I would have killed for some of these pupils as a governor of an undersubscribed (yet outstanding) outer London primary.

‘The amount of money available for the state services we all rely on will be less as a result of this policy. Both now - as the immediate cost of educating those extra children falls on the state -and even more so in the future - when that educational dip hits the productivity of all those UK citizens when they become adults. Both the ones BP regards as 'her children' and those she doesn't. We should want all of them to become as productive as possible.’

Again, this is very tenuous. You are assuming that, net, VAT will be a cost to the state sector and not a positive. You have to go to extremes of pupils leaving and no substitutable VAT spending (I don’t believe the people on here that they will put it all into their pensions or give up work and never buy a new car or go on holiday).

And you are totally catastrophising about the educational attainment of the state sector for children from mainly middle class educated parents. The majority of my friends’ children in normal comprehensive schools are expecting 7-9s at GCSE (including my own children) and going on to achieve well at 6th form, uni and in life.

The predominant two predictors of success are raw genetic intelligence and your parents. School comes a distant third.

Interestingly I was shown some data the other day in a different context that disproves the “demographic crisis” idea, showing that pupil numbers of secondary age group are about to peak and then fall again, but that they are then projected to level out well above 2020 numbers. I’ll try to look out the graph, but it rather put a different spin on the idea that schools will be desperate for pupils.

@Newbutoldfather - you cannot assume that middle class parents priced out of private education will stay in the UK. Many have transferable jobs. The key is to keep the reputation of UK Education being excellent. Once that goes, coupled with the NHS challenges, we are going to lose a lot of young successful workers to other countries. The demographic challenge is a competition for young skilled workers now.

Absolutely. And you also can’t assume they won’t simply move to areas within the U.K. where there are already better state schools, resulting in the hyper-gentrification of those areas and schools. The benefits of the influx of wealthier parents and middle class children into the school system won’t in any way be evenly spread across the country, or even within counties — yet the new multi-tier school system will cost the government more!

Labour anticipated much fewer dc moving already didn’t they? Where did they get the initially wrongly assumed number from

Is that 35k figure below also what they are relying on?

Another thing that really bothers me about the argument that private schools should be abolished, whether by stealth or by frank policy, is that it is essentially an argument for ensuring that all schools are required fully to implement government policies and curricula. The current government has already made clear its intention to limit the autonomy of academies, and thereby to homogenise the state sector. I don’t think that’s a good thing, partly because children and families differ so a variety in the school offering helps to ensure a greater total number of pupils do well, but even more so because bad educational policy can wreak a good deal of harm very quickly in terms of how well, how much, and what children are taught. Having a broad range of schools that vary in terms of how firmly they fall under state control therefore helps to protect the educational system at large against duff governments.

There's something I've been wondering about. On most of these threads, there is an ongoing debate that goes something like this: "The VAT policy has a negative externality - it will push more students into the state sector!" The implication here is that these students will COST money.

But the typical reply (the one given by the government) is: "No worries. We have falling rolls. State schools will welcome the incoming students." The implication here is that these students will actually BRING money (to schools).

I have my own thoughts on how policies should adapt to falling rolls, but let's move beyond that for a minute.

Is it the government's goal (or at least, a "positive externality" of VAT) to help bolster student numbers in a situation where they are worried about losing money in its own schools? It seems counterintuitive to most opponents of VAT, but if we take the government at its word, then I think this is what it's saying.

In that case, is this the state using fiscal policy to manipulate competition in the education market for its own financial advantage? That smells illegal, but I'm not from around here.

I completely agree with the previous post about government control of curriculum and lack of parent choice - not because I suspect the government of having a particular ideological focus, but because I live in Scotland and the government is useless. The curriculum for excellence' is rubbish and outcomes from state education are falling. In response to this state schools are moving to a 'play based' P1 which sounds nice but talking to parents it basically translates to most time spent in unstructured play and only about a fifth of time actively learning. In the private school I have experience of P1 also involved a lot of play but in a way designed to reinforce learning - activities based around letters & phonics.

The main reason we went private was lack of faith in the state curriculum, and nothing I've heard from state school parents has changed my opinion. There are also huge attainment divides between local state secondary schools which are physically very closely located to each other - I know several families using placement requests at primary to try and avoid their low attainment catchment secondary in the future (little choice on school in Scotland, it's catchment secular school, catchment Catholic or appealing for a specific placement you have to justify).

@soundslikeDaffodil

I've wondered the same.

My guess is that it's not the primary motivator - that is still the idea of cutting people down to size and ending what they see as one group getting an advantage (with nothing more nuanced in their heads than 'Eton toffs').

However the falling rolls mean that they can spin this in their little heads as a virtuous move to keep employment in the state sector by increasing the pupil numbers so schools don't shut.

Issue being that schools and available pupils aren't necessarily going to pop up in the right places.

Also the likelihood is that many parents who would have opted for private education throughout as a lifestyle choice (ie not SEN kids failed by state) will now look at State Plus till Y7/Y9 and then return to State for 6th form... which is going to make for some interesting problems.

Both are true. When opponents of the VAT policy argue pupils moving into state will cost money, they are thinking of the fact that the education budget has to be divided between more children - so the money per head gets smaller for everyone.

Pro-VAT posters tend to be thinking from the perspective of individual schools - a few more students come into my school - great, they bring more money per head! But they aren’t thinking about the system as a whole, nor that on both a micro level it’s possible to add more students (thus increasing pressures on an individual school), but still not “gain” enough money per head to offset these pressures by eg. employing an additional teacher.

If you gain three ex-private pupils who are quiet, compliant and studious then yes, maybe you get an “extra” £18k and add comparatively little in terms of cost/pressure on resources. But if you add three pupils with significant SEN but no ECHP you might be adding £18k but actually costing your school more than that in terms of additional special needs support, 1-1 provision, disruption, taking up TA time, etc.

Everyone thinks they’d be adding the nice middle class kids with sharp elbows that Bridget Phillipson talks about, who magically take up no resources yet bring parents who will lobby for better provision and run the PTA (not sure why this is thought of as great: in my experience the thing that the SLT least likes is parents like this).

In reality, the more private kids move, the more that £18k becomes £15k, and then £12k, and then as the education budget has to go round more kids, the funding shrinks overall, and especially the per capita funding to schools which don’t attract ex-private school kids. They are the schools that in the end lose out massively because suddenly the per capita budget gets that bit smaller because it has to stretch to more students in the system.

Your points on why it's not a GOOD strategy are well taken! No arguments there.

But is this absolutely legal? You say it's not the main purpose of the policy, but it is definitely a repeated talking point from the government. And who are we not to take them at their word? Fiscal policy being used to manipulate competition (particularly where the government stands to "benefit") just seems off.

Well said.

@Araminta1003 ,

’ - you cannot assume that middle class parents priced out of private education will stay in the UK. Many have transferable jobs. The key is to keep the reputation of UK Education being excellent. Once that goes, coupled with the NHS challenges, we are going to lose a lot of young successful workers to other countries. The demographic challenge is a competition for young skilled workers now.’

Of course, a few may move abroad. But I don’t think those priced out of a private school are high fliers who can move abroad at the flick of a switch.

Also, the vast majority of people with children have significant ties to their community: parents, friends , their children’s friends etc etc.

Yes, the odd one may go to Singapore and put their children in an international school there, but it will be an absolutely tiny percentage.

There aren’t that many international schools which are taught in English and to the U.K. curriculum. The alternative is moving your children to a completely different system and a completely different language.

I am guessing you are still here, despite your frequent posts saying how awful the U.K. is and how people should move, as are a couple of my U.K. hating friends. Why do you stay?

Pretty sure Araminta's kids aren't are fee paying schools and that her objection is not personal but societal.

My objection is on policy too. In that it’s bad for education sector as a whole. Bad for state too. Which is why other countries don’t do it, or do the opposite.

This was on another thread. It seems very relevant

‘Apparently the government assumed that only 3000 kids would leave the private sector - and it’s been somewhere between 10000 and 13000. Which tips the whole exercise into ‘no money made’ territory.’

Yes, I was thinking in particular of New Zealand where well intentioned policies around teaching maths (basically using play based approaches that allow kids to learn to do maths ‘in their own way’) have led to a collapse in attainment and thousands of children with extremely poor numeracy. It has also led to a resurgent private schools sector as concerned parents try to get their kids a functional maths education. But what happens if the private school sector has been abolished or made so expensive that parents can’t get access to it? Tutoring, I guess, for the lucky.

We also know from the court case though that the government had been told their 3k number was rubbish and it would be likely 10k. They ignored and pushed on.

Yes @Shambles123 - my concern is societal. It is too difficult to get a good state school place in many parts of the country which leads to huge inefficiencies. Realistically, you can only move at key transition points and if you have several children, it is a massive issue. So making private education which was a back up for some even more unrealistic, introduces even more inefficiencies. You do not get this scramble for good school places in most other European countries. How do we get rid of the societal anxiety around education in this country? The NHS already has a terrible reputation as well, taxes are high and restricting educational choices is inefficient. Personally, I also think it is ridiculous that if you are British you cannot access British universities and have to be tax resident for 3 years in advance (and again, some people seem to work around that one whereas others are caught out). Other countries are welcoming in high attaining families with children. We are doing everything we can to push out a generation of talented middle class people. I wonder why? If you want a stable society, you need a stable middle class.

@newbutoldfather house prices may have exceeded CPI by about 2-3% on average, but you have to include the cost of interest (which even now is historically low) in the total price of buying a house. Total price of buying a house with a mortgage - and so obviously also your monthly mortgage payment - and so house buying affordability - hasn't changed in a generation. Except in the SE.

@Newbutoldfather - as soon as Trump announced the Harvard international student ban bluff, both Germany and Hong Kong pretty much said they would welcome these students. Why would you not? Rich smart international students are welcome by smart countries. Chinese students have now realised they can go to Germany at a fraction of the cost of coming to the UK. This is what I mean, yet here we keep putting smart people off staying both with our taxation system and all the other rhetoric. It is complete madness to do this with an ageing population. The VAT on private school fees is one facet of this illogical thinking.