In Defence of Private Schools

[Wayland1]

What do you think of Labour's private school plans?

Yesterday, Labour delegates voted for plans that would abolish private schools, with plans to remove charitable status and redistribute their endowments, investments and properties to the state sector. In addition, a new social justice commission would be tasked with integrating private schools into the state system.

This amounts to unlawful seizure of private property. Government, in a law-governed society, cannot simply seize private property in peacetime.

Also, you do not improve education by destroying what are some of the UK's best educational institutions. I agree that our education system isn't perfect, and that we may get frustrated at, for example, the excessive fees and running costs of most private schools nowadays. But in my opinion, the way to improve the situation is to have more choice and competition, not less.

What do you think?

I think it’s bollocks that Finnish people are coming over here to learn how private schools do it..Their system is poles apart and based on a very different ideology! Including long periods of play time, advocating learning through play, tiny amounts of homework, learning how to read at a slower, later date, no streaming and hardly any testing.

There is little to choose between the state girls school and the private girls school in our city. The state has marginally better results.

Private schools are excellent at polishing turds, I'll give you that.

Not all private schools are Eton. It is an extreme case. And the current shower of shites all left there 30+ years ago.

There are plenty which are filled by normal, average children from normal, average families My DS school for example, getting on for half of the kids have parents who are self-employed tradespeople who have done well in their business (roofers, builders, electricians etc) and have chosen to invest in their children's education. They are not 'toffs'. They are people who want education to provide more than just academic outcomes, they want the access to sports, the arts etc, to open up opportunities which they didn't get for themselves. When state schools can give the same all round offering nationwide, that will be the time to get rid of private schools.

Way I would disagree, because between the school and the job is the university and often work experience. So I do think there is a 'connections' thing going on.

(For full disclosure, I went to a top girls independent school, but chose to send my DC to local good comp.)

@Wayland1 I don't think it's all about class sizes. Teaching methods and curriculum are also very important. Of course they are. And the Finns have invested in and encouraged higher level training of their teachers.
Still interested to know about the Finns who came here to learn about private schools....

I’m curious about Holland. From what I know the private schools there are primarily used by expats not the Dutch, yet they have a high standard of state education. Why does it work so well that they don’t opt for private education?

Sounds like there’s a turd on here that could do with a little ‘polishing’ 🙄

If I choose to remortgage my house to send my child to a private school, while my neighbour decides they’d rather spend the same amount on a bigger house, flash holidays and a new car..tell me how is that unethical?

I’m also interested in all the private specialist schools where lots of the places are funded by Local authorities. Would they be closed too?

"The main reason people from private schools tend to get better jobs is because private schools on average provide a better education."

Wooooooaaaaah

Old boys network is over rated? Bullshit. Old Etonians are vastly over represented in parliament in relation to the percentage of Old Etonians in the population. That’s not education that’s nepotism. 67% of MPs were educated in private or grammar schools, 9% of the population attend private or grammar.

I don’t think private schools should be abolished though. Catchment areas are school by ability or not to buy a house in the desired school area. That’s not going to change by rolling in private school resources. It would inflate house prices in some areas, pushing more people out of the housing market and those with the least resources would not find their schools magically improved.

Seems a bit inconsistent. Is private tuition bad or helping your kid with their homework? Music, swimming, language lessons? Because some people don’t get those opportunities. Is it something about particular subjects that makes private lessons a bad thing?

I guess people think it is ok to have private schools for drama, music, sport, ballet but when it comes to academic subjects people think it should be banned? Similarly for selection...

Ps - i’m Not v pro private schools either and think raising general taxes or specific private education taxes (would you tax tutors?) may be reasonable.

I agree Mum .
I think it is up to the state to make state schools so good that paying for private schools becomes a waste of money.
But there should also be provisions to ensure university and professional jobs access continues to be made available to all who could succeed, not just those who got slightly better A level results due to private schools, or to people who can get 'better' work experience because they can afford to work for free for a year.

I believe in state education and would never work in a private school or send my dd to a private school. I think that it's wrong that private schools should effectively be subsidised. It's right that charitable status is removed from them.

However, I do think that it's a terrible idea to talk about abolishing private schools or to seize their assets. That's completely unjustifiable.

Getting rid of private schools will never improve state education. The difference between good state schools and poor ones will become larger. Parents aren’t going to go from Eton to Grange Hill, they’ll monopolise the already excellent grammar and comprehensives that already exist and pat themselves on the back that their children are still in a good school with their similar wealthy friends and their outcomes will remain the same just as those from Sink Academy won’t get sight or sound of the aspirations and education already offered in the high performing state schools. Their paths won’t cross

If I choose to remortgage my house to send my child to a private school, while my neighbour decides they’d rather spend the same amount on a bigger house, flash holidays and a new car..tell me how is that unethical?

Private schools are unethical because you are able to use your wealth to give your child an unfair advantage over someone else's child.

New cars and holidays have nothing to do with anything. Whereas private schools are an enormous contributing factor to continuing social inequality. So yes, it's an unethical choice. By all means make that choice, but it is unethical.

Can we please stop the bullshit about “this is how I chose the spend my money”?!!

There are millions of people who can’t “choose” private school because they have no money to choose to spend. It’s a bloody nonsense to pretend that we could all afford private school if only we made different choices. Let’s stop pretending.

It’s for those that can afford to pay and that’s it. The rest get no choice. Unless you can afford to buy an expensive house near a good state school. Otherwise you’ll just have to deal with what is left. That’s no way to run a 21st century education system!

I think it is up to the state to make state schools so good that paying for private schools becomes a waste of money.

And do you think that is ever going to happen while the children of the wealthy and powerful remain unaffected by underfunded state schools?

13SpaghettiSharon

Yep. Just waiting for the "I work hard for my money" brigade to show up.

Then the "you're just jealous" brigade.

Why are people still bringing up Finland? Their spectacular results were 20 years ago and their raw scores in all three internationally tested subjects have dropped since then.

Do we really want to improve our schools by modelling our system on a system that has managed to knock an entire academic year off the attainment of its students in some subjects.

I think it's a great idea. The children (and their) parents from private schools are quite likely to be well motivated towards education and the schools are likely to be able to raise extra funds from parents more easily.
It would be more of a level playing field for all. It would reduce the old boys network considerably. More social mixing will be good for society. There would be an influx of money and motivated children and parents into state schools. Poorer and less well educated children might even be able to access some of those lovely school buildings.
It's all very well making out that most children at private schools come from low paid but hard working parents/homes but I strongly suspect that in fact most privately educated children come from privileged homes whose parents are well educated and motivated.
I can't bear Corbyn but actually this would be something that might make me consider voting Labour.

@RafalsTheKingofClay Bringing up the Finns because @Wayland1 , the OP, made a claim about them but hasn't substantiated it yet.

I've worked in state secondary education as well as higher education for years now. I've worked in both fantastic schools and awful ones- even within the state system, postcode lottery plays a massive part, I've taught some obviously bright children from deprived backgrounds who were at a massive disadvantage before they even started primary. They could have potentially done very well in a state school which was well run with sound resources and behaviour management and consistently good teaching. Unfortunately, the children who need it most are rarely given these opportunities.

While I disagree with private education as a concept, there will need to be vast improvements made to State schools before you make any attempts to abolish private.

Private schools are unethical because you are able to use your wealth to give your child an unfair advantage over someone else's child.

Unless you want to live in a communist state, there will always be people with different levels of disposable income. The wealthy will always buy advantage and opportunity. Removing private schools won't stop that, it will just move to tutoring and extra curricular activities that the poor cannot afford either.