Parents "should pay for schools"

[CountessDracula]

"Parents 'should pay for schools'

Lucy Ward
Wednesday February 4, 2004
The Guardian

Most parents should be made to pay towards their children's schooling, in an extension of the "co-payment" principle used by Tony Blair to justify university top-up fees, the prime minister's biographer, Anthony Seldon, will say tonight.
Dr Seldon, headmaster of the independent Brighton College and a respected contemporary political historian, proposes the end of universal free state education with the introduction of "partnership schools", financed jointly by parents and the state.

Three-quarters of children would go to these schools, with parents contributing according to their means, he will tell a conference of independent school bursars and financial advisers. About a fifth of the poorest children would go to schools financed entirely by the state, while a handful would go to entirely fee-paying schools.

Such a reform would anger teaching unions and many parents, and goes well beyond current government thinking. "

Comments?

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whaaaaaat? ffs!

oh for god's sake.

it's just a starting point for debate. Suggest something really extreme and work backwards.

I thought we paid already - its called taxation isn't it?

it doesn't surprise me that people are popping up to say this kind of thing right now as its a logical extension of paying for university education
slippery slopes etc - start with simple stuff like paying for small operations/university top up fees and then once the principle is established, move the boundaries further and further until we pay for everything and still have to pay tax anyway so we can finance wars in countries hardly anyone could even place on a map

grrrrrr

I thought our taxes already paid for schools. I don't think they've thought this through at all. They've got away with charging more for university education because a university education isn't compulsory. What happens if parents refuse to pay? Do they get jailed for not sending their children to school? Or do the children get sent to a school funded entirely by the state?

What next? Will they be taxing us according to how many squares of toilet paper we use to wipe our backsides??

i think it is really terrible

Talk about creating a class sysytem (yes, I know we already have one - don't shoot me down in flames!!)or rather perpetuating a class system.Making an even bigger divide between the haves and have-nots. And of course no-one is going to be discriminated against for the type of school they went to?? Nooo, surely not!!