Part-pay schools

[treadmilldad]

My son is due to sit 11+ in a week and I'm so sick of what he and we have gone through to give him the best chance that I feel that I just have to say something. The 11+ pass bar is ludicrously high which means the usual story of paying for private tuition, while facing the postcode lottery but ultimately it's way too much pressure especially on the child and a lost summer holiday. How can this madness persist? There's got to be another way.

As a parent with children at state primary school, it drives me crazy that the education system in the UK has always been so polarised. On the one hand you have very expensive private schools and on the other hand free, but struggling state schools. As a result UK society reflects the polarisation in the education system. There are one or two state funded grammar schools, which many parents aspire to for their children because they just want their children to have the best opportunities in life, but these are the exception.

The gap between rich and poor just widens, and the education system continues to reinforce the divide, as continuously reported in the media. The UK lacks social mobility so much.

The new Free Schools although free appear to have got off to a stuttering start and academies have their own issues. What is for sure is that class sizes of 30 or more children (34 in my child's case) in state schools is a major reason for state school poor performance. If rather than having 1 teacher + 1 or more teaching assistants in a class, 2 teachers could be paid for (i.e. 15 children per teacher) then no doubt state school education would improve. This obviously requires more money hence the following part-pay idea.

The part-pay formula

My wife and I cannot afford to pay for private education for our kids but we could afford to pay a supplement for better education - say half the cost of private fees.

Parents would sign up to paying the amount of fees that they could afford at the start of the school year. There would be allowances however, so that parents who could not afford to pay the fees would not have to pay anything. Parents would commit to paying the amount they wish to from 0-100%, or more, and the state would provide the balance of the fees. Also large housing developers would have to directly support the building, renovation and maintenance of local school buildings, and local communities would be able to freely donate funds to the school to the benefit of that school.

If for any reason the level of funding committed at the start of the year fell below an economically viable level (class size >15 per teacher) then the overall funding gap would be broadcast to parents, the local community and the government who would be asked to commit to paying a certain amount more.

In general the system would be very transparent, but the system would ensure that schools in poorer areas would not suffer v schools in richer areas due to subsidisation, and indeed schools in poorer areas would have more funds available than local authority schools currently do.

There could be additional benefits too. For example rather than the ludicrous necessity of affording extra tuition fees and time for your child to sit 11+, the tuition could be delivered as part of normal schooling as it should already be. Also I can see from my own kids' local authority schools that if only the head governor's role in the school was a well paid one then it would attract a strong leader and the whole school would benefit as a result.

It would be great if one day the state schools could outmatch the private schools and reduce the inequality across the UK.

People volunteer time and money every day. Not just to the education system, a lack of social responsibility is not the issue nationally in my opinion. A tax system and an elected government to redistribute the taxes according to their priorities is what we have, If we dealt properly with poverty and inequality then the education system would have a better chance.

It does not have to be shit for everyone.

This is just not needed. Income tax already varies according to income. I would much prefer the ££ were taken via income tax and used to properly fund schools. The cost is then also spread over your working life.

That is actually how it works now, we just have a government that wants tax rates to be low and public services to be underfunded. That is the issue here.

we just have a government that wants tax rates to be low and public services to be underfunded. That is the issue here.
with bells on

cookie so why not just give that £150k to the school then? Because of you want the money to only help your dc, it's a tutor you need not a school. I can't imagine a decent private letting you buy a teacher on that basis either.

ttbb If everyone only had kids they could afford then we wouldn't need state education, as everyone could pay for private. Or do you see a moral difference between the tax payers funding mc dc's education and funding people at the mercy of employers or in the poverty trap? Because I don't. And the tiny, minuscule minority of genuine scroungers really aren't big enough to make a difference. It doesn't need to be shit for everyone to make education fair for all.

Of course no idea is perfect but equally when the only two schools on the selection letter have both been in Special Measures recently following the usual headteacher departure and others have closed down then that is not a "choice" and the Comprehensive system clearly doesn't work for all.

The theory of an "an excellent education for all" through taxation is great but who wants their child to go to a failing school? "In theory" no one should have to move house to go to a good school.

The 11+ pass bar is ludicrously high

Depends on the area. In our area, the admission criteria is usually around 70% which I don't think is particularly high. Though I do know some super-selective areas where it's 95%+ which is indeed ludicrous. It's just down to demand. In super-selective areas, there's obviously far too much demand for the relatively few places available so they have to set a high level to choose how to admit. In our area, there are usually only 2 applicants for each place, so the bar is set a lot lower.

The theory of an "an excellent education for all" through taxation is great but who wants their child to go to a failing school?

When I was a child, our local grammar had just turned into a High School (mid 70's). The party line at that time (swallowed hook line and sinker by my parents) was that the High School would give everyone a grammar education. What a load of crap! The nearby secondary moderns were closed at the same time and the grammar was massively expanded. Results, behaviour, etc just plummeted. Worst 5 years of my life due to substandard teachers, awful bullying, etc. It wasn't even a "failing" school - it was supposed to be one of the best. It's about time there was some standardisation of schools as it's plainly ridiculous that state schools can be so different.

Ultimately more funding goes a long way to making a school better. Taxation alone will always struggle to provide the level of investment that private schools enjoy. e.g. secondary fees state £6000 per child/year v private £18000 per child/year.

If parents could contribute some of their pre-tax income towards fees (like childcare vouchers) that would help, however the voucher system quoted by Babypythagorus above does not really correlate with this vision. This idea is for combined public+private funding making for better schools overall, not a system in which the private sector benefits at the expense of the poor.

Now I know this is different before the usual poster reminds me of this, but the principle is similar.

My dd attends a specialist music school where fees are around £32k give or take a few quid.
The parents are charged fees due to income, the more they earn the more they pay. So if your total income is 190k you pay the full fees, if you earn under 20k you pay very little.
The difference is the gov/tax payer foots the rest of the bill.

However, if you were looking at means testing for state school you would just have a different sliding scale, so those with a medium sized income would pay more than those on a low income, whilst those on benefit paid nothing.
It may not cover the whole costs of running the school but would help with a significant proportion, unless all the parents were low income or benefits.

I think for it to work you'd have to look at admissions and people being able to move closer to better schools.
Not sure how you'd manage this though.

I don't think it would work however you managed it gilly. If you do it on a local level all that would happen is that largely mc intake schools would be even better, and schools with mainly deprived/ low income dc would be the same as currently or even worse.

If you did it nationally lots of parents would have different objections. I wouldn't be happy to contribute spare income so that the mc dc who are already more privileged than mine can have an even better state school, even though I'd happily contribute to less privileged dc. Nor would I be happy if it went to the catchment school because no dc would see it.

Ditto for mc parents in good schools, I don't think they'd all happily contribute to a central pot if their dc didn't see any of it because it all went to improve bad schools, or struggling schools.

Or parents of children with sn who have been completed failed by the education system, I imagine quite a few would resent paying when their own dc have been prevented from remaining in the system.

Unless it was done as a tax increase so there was no choice, and that would be political death for whichever party raised it.