"Mumsnet hate private schools"

[Swedington]

I read this in the newspaper recently. (I think maybe it was a quote of Justine's.)

I know there are some posters who are to Mumsnet what Bob Crow is to the London Underground (hope you saw him on HIGNFY), but I don't think there is a huge anti private school thing going on here is there?

Indeed! And the only way to do that and to be sure that everything is absolutely fair and equal is to take children away from parents at birth and bring them up in 24 hours day care...

Day and night care, perhaps?

There is a brilliant system I know of in an inner-city US environment where the school board (local governing body for state schools) asked people, themselves parents, in each neighborhood to support other parents in the community. It is a community effort to help families at home support their children in schools. The people working in this capacity realised that much of the reluctance to engage with their children's schools stemmed from parents' own negative schooling experiences, embarrassment about their own lack of literacy, numeracy, etc, and they worked to support the parents to address their own issues with education.
I thought this was brilliant, because it was an attempt to actually address the real problem, not simply to mitigate against it.

The Head of the school where I volunteer took us all out for drinks last night ( very kind of her) and we were atlking about this.

On the one hand it has to be the resposibility of the state to try to redress the balance for those children who have disadvantaged home lives.
And yet, most of the teachers felt that although this was a laudable motivation, it was, except in a few cases, unachievable.
If parents are disintersted, they felt, then children will be disintersted.

Teachers are, afterall, neither social nor miracle workers.

While I think that it is vital that the state addresses the question of how to help children from disinterested families, I agree that it cannot be down to schools/teachers to do so.

Or the curriculum . . .

I haven't had time to read the whole thread, but from what I've seen, some MNers hate private schools. A similar proportion love 'em.

The statement 'Mumsnet hates faith schools' would have approximately the same validity.

But while our schools are seen as a tool to address this inequality the move to open up state education to other providers (incl. parents) will be hampered.

jackstarbright, could you explain your thinking further . . .

I believe there are some very vocal groups in Mumsnet and some others who have different believes but don't have the need to prove them (or perhaps are just afraid of being unnecessarily bashed by those vocal groups).

If we were to polarise the things and define from what we read, the kind of group that reads mumsnet it could be said that we are some breastfeeding fundamentalists, that we hate private schools, that we have a very strong and educated view in parenting issues, health issues and even good healthy eating.

In reality, we talk about these things, practice some, ignore others and in general we all are, very very different.

After years and years in Mumsnet, I consider myself a true mumsneter yet... my child was bottlefeed (have some good excuses for this so don't jump on me), went to private school (I absolutely loved it and would send DS back as a flash if I had the resources to do it), have some good idea in parenting issues but not the full will to practice all of them, but to my defense, I confess myself to be a healthy eating fundamentalist. Hardly the stereotype of what a Mumsneter is portrayed to be.

Believes???? Beliefs even

Zazizoma my thoughts...

The way I see it, there are two broad approaches to addressing the issues in our education system. Ironically, both rely on the energy and input of 'middle class' parents.

There is the approach you outlined in an earlier post, where new schools are created by interested parties. Good schools are rewarded (via vouchers) and poor schools closed. Parents are empowered, more good schools created and the education bar raised.

The other approach is more centralised. Emphasis is put on fairness (ideally closing private, selective, and faith based schools). The logic being that middle-class children will drive up standards in weaker schools. However, as the middle classes are, by now, well practised as 'playing the system' the approach requires the state to be one step ahead (hence lotteries and ability banding allocations etc.).

The second approach tends to see education as a tool to address social inequality and I don't think the two approaches are compatible IYSWIM!!!

jackstarbright, very clearly stated, thank you.

I'm sending my dc to school to be educated in such a way that they realise their potential, not to participate in a social leveling project. I think a poster mentioned a few pages back about how the actual education aspect gets conflated with the social equality aspect resulting in muddlement (I just coined that, BTW . . . )

I'm not sure I agree that the two approaches are incompatible. The posters who complain about the false choice regarding economics are not addressing the possibility of true choice with regards to curriculum or methodology, all under the umbrella of state education and thus freely available to all. If state education were to be opened up to other service providers, then I think you'd get the best of both.

My only objection to the centralised approach you've outlined is that it offers no choice with regards to curriculum or methodology. (I am vehemently anti-exam.)

Incompatibility would only arise if the state system intended to maintain only ONE curriculum and method to be used by all as a means of social control or easier administration. I'm not sure that the proponents of state education are actually advocating that, are they?

I hate the expression "playing the system", as if people were somehow cheating by negotiating life to their own best advantage...

Zazizoma. I think we probably are in agreement. I am very much pro autonomy. I believe that good schools are a result of strong leadership and ethos. This comes from everyone believing in what the school is doing - whatever that is - be it Steiner, faith, Montessori, diversity, academic selective, sport, nurturing, comprehensive...

I also think the primary role of our schools is education not social work. Although, as a society we need to address issues of social mobility, this should not be at a cost to overall standards of education.

However, I doubt any government could resist a bit of muddlement!!!

yes jackstarbright, we are indeed in agreement!

That's excellent Zazizoma - anyone else?

I think Zazizoma is partly right - those of us who support state education are often accused of wanting a "one size fits all" system and I'm pleased to have it acknowledged that this is not the case. (It's a common rhetorical technique - to find a poster who is arguing for X, to take the worst case example of X you can think of - called Y - and accuse that person of therefore arguing for Y.) However, I'm not convinced that privatising the state system (forgive me if I am reading it wrong but that seems to be the suggestion) is the solution.

I also agree that I do not want my children to be part of a "social levelling project" and would perhaps suggest that to call it this is to fall into the rhetorical trap above...

I've long argued on here that there should be a way of ensuring school autonomy and diversity of provision - one which does not depend on the parent's wallet.

Because that's the elephant in the room - if one is going to bring social division and mobility into the argument, then paying for education is surly the biggest social divider (and/or conserver of pre-existing rigid social divides) of all.

UnquietDad - I am in agreement with ensuring school autonomy and diversity of provision, but I don't understand why you are implying that turning control of curriculum and methodology over to a group of interested parents and teachers is 'privatising' the system (which to me implies that someone is going to make a profit . . . )

At this point, the state system offers little-to-no diversity in method, with academies being the only nod in that direction. Wales offers none. Do you consider the English academies to be privatised?

Could you perhaps propose your ideal solution since none suggested are suitable?

I don't have an "ideal" solution. Why should I?

I don't consider the academies to be economically privatised, but I do think people should be more worried than they appear to be about particular interest groups (especially faith/superstition groups) having a vested interest in schools.

All too often someone comes along with a wad of cash offering shiny new buildings and uniform, and the LA and local community bite their hand off because they think it is a quick fix for all their problems. In our city, certainly, academies have not worked. The schools are just as bad as they were and one of the "superheads" has already resigned.

My impression of MN is quite the reverse, it feels like at least half the posters send their kids to private school, way more than I know in RL.

response to opening post above, hadn't read the whole thread and now feel a bit silly. As you were.

But you are right, qumquat. Th divide on here is about 50-50. A vastly skewed sample when compared with real life, which is on average 93-7 in favour of state.

I always do this in these threads but

here is how it pans out regionally

That info is from 2006, so may be getting a bit stale now. If anyone has more up-to-date stats I'd be pleased to see them.

It is interesting those stats, uqd, but as someone who lives in islington, can I stress that it's not the percentage of people who live in the borough who are educated privately, it's the percentage of people who are educated privately in the borough ie it's about the physical presence of schools within the borough rather than where their pupils live. Gosh, am expressing myself badly I know but I can tell you that in the bits of islington I know it's about 30%, but they're driving to Hampstead so that's where their stats will show up.

I get your point PP. It's done on education authorities, not residential postcodes.