is private REALLY better?

[ChuppaChups]

just out of interest, i would appreciate some OPINIONS on this area as i am seriously considering the move to private from state. The main reason being is we are now financially able to do so.

So, is it better and why?

Thanks

I do wonder at those who have benefited from having "elitism" free of charge in their area of the country due to the existence of grammar schools complaining about those who have to pay for a similar education in other parts of the country (especially in the last decade since the abolition of assisted places).

OA - You impled that if the state sector were improved, you would use it. What improvements are necessary to state education, that the private sector already enjoys?

In principle, I am against private education, but can see a huge advantage in social networking. You only need to look at people in top professions - elite schools breed people to fill elite jobs, and that's not fair.

I can see that its not fair that one person can buy their child an advantage and another not. I can also see that this will be self-perpetuating.

But I wouldn't say it's wrong. If the alternative of private education is better in the area in which you live to the state education on offer then its entirely reasonable for a parent to send his children there. The system is not the parent's fault and it is far too idealistic to expect a parent to just lump it when it comes to his children.

Because most other people, I would have thought would use tax credits or benefits to pay for essentials like food not school fees.

It can't be a choice open to everyone, if we all used subsidised school fees where would the money come from.

Not everyone who lives in a grammar school area chooses to use them either.

I'm not saying that paying for your child's education is morally less acceptable than paying for a second home. We have a system in this country where the wealth and power are held in very few hands. And those hands are overwhelmingly privately educated. Because people appoint others like themselves, this inequity is perpetuated. A St Custard's alumnus looking for members of his team is more likely to choose a fellow St Custard's person, or St Jelly or St Trifle over Bash Street Comprehensive regardless of actual qualifications. That's what i mean by buying privilege.

The grammar school I went to 35 years ago was crap. The one my son goes to now is just as bad. They're bound to get better results -they select the brightest 30% of the children. Ugh 11+... ugh... pressure on 10 year olds.... tutoring.... sink schools in grammar school areas... ugh... smugness at results time.... narrow curriculum.. ugh

seeker - and do you believe that power is not, to a large extent, concentrated in the hands of a few in other western European countries?

trickerg - what is so wrong with pressure on 10 year olds? I live in a country (France) where the reverse is true: the NC (and it is universally applied here, even in "private" schools) stretches bright (even reasonably bright) children so little that many are depressed.

I suppose we have to be careful whether we use "wrong" or "fair" and think about what those loaded terms mean. But I'd argue buying a car or a house is very different from buying education, because (yes, I'm doing itemised lists again - sorry, people take the piss for this but I am an organised person):

a) education is not a commodity (well, ought not to be) and having quality education available at a price almost lets free education off the hook ("it's free, what do you expect? This is Bash Street. If you want small classes, careful attention to your child's needs and lacrosse lessons, got to St Ponce's")

and

b)your purchase of a car, clothes or a holiday does not impact on someone else's. (Houses are a more complex issue because of the limits on quality stock.) It does not affect anyone else. In buying a car, you are not saying "I don't want to walk with you plebs."

and

c) buying education, regardless of your careful "reasons" for doing it, always seems like such an antisocial and judgey thing to do, and a way of setting yourself apart from people who don't.

BA, many 10 year olds in our county are put under a great deal of unnecessary stress about passing the 11+. The grammar schools are a holy grail (a flimsy premise IMO) and tutoring goes on from an early age. Failing the 11+, as well as being disappointing, can add to the pressure, as you may be in the catchment area for one of the poor schools that inevitably exist in a grammar school area. Then there are lengthy appeals, not always with happy outcomes.

I realise there are poor schools, etc, in all areas, but the situation here is not helped by the grammar school system.

I think your arguments are very spurious there, UnquietDad!

Education is not a consumer durable and is life-enhancing in a long-term way that a car is not (though I profoundly disagree that people do not buy cars as a way of avoiding the masses on public transport). That is what bothers people about it.

Sure, it is deeply unfair that some children have far more educational opportunities than others. But it is not wrong. Life is unfair, and that is a fact, but putting others down or holding them back is a very weak (dare I say morally dubious) way of trying to level the playing field. It is far better, IMO, to expend one's energy on getting the very best deal for one's own family than getting worked up about what others have that you cannot personally afford.

Exactly - education is not a consumer durable.

Holding people back? Well, that's where we have to disagree, because I in no way admit or concede that a state system for all automatically puts anybody down or holds them back. It's a clever argument, with the one rather unfortunate problem that it isn't true.

And we are not talking about me, or what I can or can't personally afford - that isn't something I would care to bring into this.

What are the private schools like in France Anna? Do your dcs go to one?

There are lots of ways to buy a better education that don't involve private schools.

You can:
(1) pay a tutor to get little Tarquin into a nice, free Grammar School;

(2) spend a heap of money moving into the catchment area of that "super" Comprehensive;

(3) discover religion to get your precious darling into the quite posh religious school.

Anyone who has done any of the above is in no position to criticise people who choose private education. They have all bought a better education for their child.

Well, faith schools are wrong and I'd like to remove the faith element from state education, so that clearly isn't a problem. (They are not necessarily always "quite posh" though.)

The only reason the grammar system has become taken over by the pushy middle-classes with private tutors is that there are now so few grammars available. In the 1980s, when I went to grammar school, there was none of this.

Yup, the disparity between supposedly equal comprehensives in different socio-economic areas in the state system is, of course, a concern. But rather than bitching about it, shouldn't we be looking at ways to address it? I welcome suggestions. (But not lotteries. I can rant for hours about why they are wrong. Try me. Just try me.)

UnquietDad - but if you were to deny people the opportunity to purchase educational opportunities for their children that the state education system cannot afford to give them, of course you would be holding those children back!

Let's take a recent example: my DSSs, 12 and 14, (who are both in the French state school system, and have been since the age of 3) are currently in England right now, spending a fortnight at Millfield School English language summer camp. That is an educational opportunity that costs us several thousand pounds. Quite a few of their peers also have been, or will go, to Millfield or similar this summer. Others of their friends will not go, often because their parents cannot afford it. Should the French state intervene and say that no children should be allowed to attend residential summer camps in England/US/Australia etc in the name of fairness? Wouldn't that be holding my DSSs and their friends back to do so?

Toptip - my DSSs are at a French state collège (11-15 junior high school) and have been right through the French state school system, albeit in a "nice" area (Neuilly-sur-Seine). There are plenty of no-hopers in their school, nonetheless.

My DD goes to a bilingual French-English school where the French state pays for the French bit (and decides on the curriculum) and parents pay for the English bit (1/4 of the school day).

Private schools are very different in France as all teachers are employees of the Ministry of Education and teach the NC and are answerable not to the head or a board of governors but to the state.

To be honest the French system is a totally different bouilloire of poissons and I don't want to get involved in arguing about that. I'm talking about the UK system.

Summer camps are very different, surely - they are extras. I'm talking about the basic rights to basic education.

What on earth is different about summer camps? Any educational experience that parents purchase for their children, above and beyond standard state educational provision, is going to confer an educational advantage that not every child will have.

UQD

I don't agree that private education lets free education of the hook.

I don't think that the quality of education in this country is lacking to any great extent - what is lacking is a whole lot more complicated than educational provision/opportunities.

No one asked you to argue about the French system UQD, I was merely asking Anna about private schools in France in her experience.

Remember the thread title is whether private is better, not about fairness of the UK school system

There is no problem with parents choosing to pay for extras. I pay for my children to learn to ride and dance and various other bits and pieces. That is not the same as paying for basic education.

My dd goes to an excellent grammar school (I don't approve of them, either, but that, along with unquietDad's lotteries, is a whole other thread). There is a very well known public school in the same town which gets very similar results to dd's school. But I know that being an alumnus of that school will carry you further, regardless of ability, than being an alumnus of dd's school. Just because of the name. If anyone can justify that, I would be glad to hear!

From reading these types of threads it becomes obvious that the best state school are the ones where the people from big houses send their kids too. And why - because the people in big houses are probably fairly well educated and are likely to value education. Even if we assume that all of the 7% of kids educated privately are not educationally disaffected and plonk them into the state system - what difference will it make? NONE.

I'm not sure what point I'm trying to make but something has just crystallised and so I've blurted it out .

agreed seeker, although it may be easier to get into uni nowadays if you come from the state system

Seeker - what is the difference between "paying for extras" (ie cobbling together your own package of paid-for educational opportunities for your child and adding them to state-funded education) and buying a full-service package of private education?