Charge parents £500 per year to boost school funds

[noblegiraffe]

A government advisor has suggested that schools plug the ever-widening chasm in their school finances by charging parents £500 per year.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/charge-parents-ps500-a-year-boost-school-funds-says-former-adviser

[roundaboutthetown]

Well, obviously this is a fantastic idea if you want to ensure the schools with an affluent intake get better funding than the schools with an impoverished intake of children. Small class sizes for the rich, large classes and a dearth of subjects offered for the poor. Nice, affluent area = people want to hire the facilities in your well maintained school, bringing in still more cash. Poor area = no-one wants to pay to hire your leaky hall with the rotten floorboards. The rich all lock together even more and the poor get left behind in the ghetto.

[SoOverItNow]

I think you've hit the nail on the head
doingitfine
😟

[DoinItFine]

Cutting preschools funding is only a false economy if you consider increasing the attainment gap to be a negative thing.

This government and the previous one have given little indication that they are interested in reducing those gaps.

Their policies seem calculated to reduce the liklihood that well off dim children will lose out to their brighter but poorer peers.

[cardboardPeony]

MrEBear it's a false economy to cut pre school funding. Early years education is so important, there is so much evidence to support this e g the EPPE study.

There's also some more here

"We have found overwhelming evidence that children’s life chances are most heavily predicated on their development in the first five years of life. It is family background, parental education, good parenting and the opportunities for learning and development in those crucial years that together matter more to children than money, in determining whether their potential is realised in adult life” www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/180884/DFE-00274-2011.pdf

[noblegiraffe]

Preschool funding is the worst place to make cuts, that's a crucial time for narrowing the gap between the disadvantaged and better off children.

[MrEBear]

Dangerous dangerous road.

Remember what happened with Unis bring in a fee of £1000 per year and within a few short years its up to £9000 per year.
I'd rather see preschool funding cut and put money into schools & colleges. But I don't think schools should be in any way private / profit making either.

[gillybeanz]

If the government aren't going to put money in schools it has to come from somewhere.
It's ok saying yes but we shouldn't have to, I totally agree, but the consequences of not doing could cost your child's education.
I wonder what you would actually get for this though and if it' a way for government to absolve responsibility.

[noblegiraffe]

Admission, if schools have to accept stuff like higher class sizes then the government has to accept stuff like worse exam results.

Fair's fair.

[admission]

I think that what schools and school leaders need to understand is that times are changing. It used to be that they squealed about the lack of funding in education etc and the money fairy came and gave them some more money. Over the last few years the money fairy has been absent and now schools are starting to find things are a bit tough.
But the first reaction is still to squeal and expect someone to come to the rescue with more money. They have tried the DfE and are now trying the parents. Quite rightly most parents object to this and probably quite rightly are blaming the DfE but actually now is the time we will find out where are the schools that can really manage themselves properly and make the difficult but necessary changes to balance the books.Some sacred cows might need to be killed off, like accepting slightly higher class sizes in secondary schools, like thinking seriously whether having an "A" level course in French with 2 pupils is good use of sparse funding. It might just be that having to cut 5 to 10% out of the budget (or find 5 to 10% creatively without the begging bowl being used,) will make schools more effective.

[EmpressoftheMundane]

So much for universal access to free state education.

[Aderyn2016]

All that will happen if parents pay directly for things their tax should cover, is that the govt will take that as permission to cut even more from the school budget and so the parental contribution will go up and in the end we will end up with a privatised system. The only kids left in state ed will be those whose families are too poor to have a choice and instead of state schools being places where most parents send their dc, thus raising standards because you have parents who are invested in their dc's education as well as those who aren't, they will be places where parents who either don't give a shit or who are under such pressure in their lives that they cannot opt out of state ed, send their kids. Those kids will be massively disadvantaged. Sland the rest of us will be massively ripped off. Privatising essential services rarely goes well.

No, we have to resist this shit from someone who no doubt has more money than sense and insist the govt does what it is already paid to do!

[IneedAdinosaurNickname]

Redlocks28

If people entitled to benefits were exempt, wouldn't it mean that those earning just above the cut off would ending up being much worse off than those under?

I'm a single parent earning 16k per year. I get some benefits as well.
I worked out recently that I am 2k per year better off than if I didn't work.
My work related costs already come to just over 2k. Plus I lost free school meals when I started work ( not saying that's wrong just stating the facts)

Assuming this was based on "families in receipt of fsm don't pay. Families who aren't do" like other things are... I'd quit my job tbh. I'd be another 1k worse off. Hardly an incentive to work is it!

[anotherMNfantasist]

I donated £500 for this year to my ds school, I didn't get a thank you, I doubt he will get any extra attention or favours.
I did it because we can afford to and because they appealed for help and said that they were in dire financial straits.

[SoOverItNow]

It's a shit idea.

Access to a decent School should be available for every child regardless of ability to pay.

[MooPointCowsOpinion]

I don't think anyone can argue we don't pay enough tax to fund education, the funding has been cut in real terms because the government does not prioritise it. They prioritise billions on air strikes, illegal wars, propping up the failing criminal justice system, pay outs to banks, selling off public assets for far less than they're worth, and above all... Making profits for themselves and their mates. They could be chasing down high value tax evasion to raise money. They could be abandoning fracking to save money. They could be abandoning failed attempts to salvage nuclear plants to save money. Managing the rail system better (they quickly sold off the only truly public line left when it was clear it was much more efficient than the privately owned). Managing the post offices better. Deducting salary from MPs and MEPs who do not turn up to debates or meetings.

Just generally not being complete arseholes with mine and your fucking tax money that should be spent on the education, social care, and health of the population.

[noblegiraffe]

I didn't say it was a good or fair argument, Aderyn. However the government aren't putting enough money into schools (and it's only going to get worse). Who cares more about your kid's schooling?

[Caprianna]

My argument is I already pay for schooling when I pay taxes. Am I going to be charged more for a doctor's appointment too soon? Where does it end and will it be compulsory to at least try to get a job so you can contribute in taxes? So many people choose not to work or not to work very much and that is a lifestyle choice.

[Aderyn2016]

Sorry giraffe but that's bollocks. Parents have already paid for decent schooling via taxation. If successive governments have ballsed it up with their constant interfearing in the education system and by making poor financial decisions (bailing out the bankers? Illegal, immoral wars?) thrn I don't see it as my responsibility to plough more money in. I expect the govt to provide what they have already been paid for.
Besides, the HT of my local secondary is someone I wouldn't trust to water my plants, let alone spend my money!

[woodlands01]

So if I donated £500:

1. would my children get more attention than they do now?
   
2. would the school listen to my issues and reply professionally rather than fobbing me off?
   
3. would I get a refund if my children don't reach the 'targets' the school sets them?

[user7214743615]

My concern would be, the parents in the wealthy areas could afford it and the schools would benefit but for those in the poorer areas the gap would widen.

This is effectively what happens in the US.

[noblegiraffe]

why should we also pay for schooling?

I guess the argument would be if you can afford to put some money towards schooling but don't because you object on a principled level, then you can't complain when your kid is crammed into a leaky portacabin with 40 other kids studying one dog-eared copy of Romeo and Juliet taught by a sixth former on a free period.

[Caprianna]

high earners already pay more into the system and receives less in tax credits etc anyway, why should we also pay for schooling?

[user1470997562]

I'm shocked at that user - is it that they can't afford it, or that they don't want to pay, do you think?

Re not paying a pound for non uniform.

Because appearances are deceptive. Many people I know have a mortgage, a home in a leafy suburb, but one dp is redundant and can't find work, the other doesn't earn enought to cover basic bills, so they're living off credit cards. That is the reality of middle England. Where this £500 is coming from I don't know.

[TheFlounder]

I'm against this but I'm also for higher taxes so I guess it equals out.

My concern would be, the parents in the wealthy areas could afford it and the schools would benefit but for those in the poorer areas the gap would widen.

[Aderyn2016]

I'm already supporting a child at uni. Fucked if I'm going to pay for school as well. That is what our tax is supposed to cover. It is already the thin end of the wedge with parents paying for text books and exercise books etc.

As an aside, people on higher incomes don't necessarily have lots of disposable income. An arbitrary rule takes no account of people's existing financial commitments.