Do you think that private schools should be abolished?

[Matt N]

Hi guys. I was reading through the news this afternoon when I found this really interesting opinion piece in iNews: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/private-schools-morally-unjust-harmful-labour-dismantle-2001709

It’s written by Ian Dunt, and it argues that private schools are “morally unjust” and that Labour should go further with their private school policy and dismantle them entirely.

Dunt cites reasons such as that private school pupils are considerably more prevalent within high-paying sectors such as law and politics, typically study A Levels far more conducive for getting into university, and overall have a considerable inherent advantage over state school pupils on average purely based on the fact that they went to private school. Dunt argues that this advantage often continues for the rest of someone’s life.

Dunt also argues that Finland, a country that has outlawed fee-paying schools for multiple decades, has higher attainment among its 15 year olds on average and also has considerably lower inequality in school attainment than the UK. It also has no discernible correlation between economic background and attainment, unlike the UK.

With this in mind, I’d be intrigued to know; would you support the abolition of private schools? Do you agree with the opinion piece?

Personally, I’m actually going to say no, I would not advocate for the full abolition of private schools.

I would certainly support Labour’s current policy of scrapping their charitable status and adding VAT to their fees. This would allow a greater amount of spending to be allocated toward state schools, and I doubt that it would drive considerable numbers out of private school.

However, I think that abolishing them entirely would be a very extreme course of action, currently at least. As much as I would support increased taxation of private schools to fund an improved state education system, I do feel that people should be given the choice to send their child to private school if they wish.

For some children, private school does offer certain benefits that a state school doesn’t, and some children don’t fit into state school very well.

I also have my doubts about whether the state could sustainably subsidise the education of all students currently in private school. That would take an awful lot of money, and I’m not entirely sure where that would come from. Off the top of my head, scrapping private schools altogether would offer no funding benefit to the Treasury, but would also require an awful lot of money to fund.

But what are your thoughts? Do you think that private schools should be abolished?

 

[Nick🎢]

Nope! Not particularly a fan of them but the politics of banning stuff we don't personally like isn't for me. Political leaning is a circle not a line. I.e. go far enough left and you find you are actually right, the target of persecution is just different.

 

[rob666]

Yup, tricky one...it does keep the inequality going, but banning the right to alternatives is always messy.
Just kick out the charitable status, unless there is easy local public access to the facilities.

 

[Nick🎢]

Charitable status, absolutely. It's not a charity... It's a business. To consider a business a charity all profits must go into a good cause e.g. scholarships, community works.

The only exception to that I would say are Specialist schools. Which while technically are private they have a different purpose. Placements are largely council funded so a tax burden would only be passed on to the tax payer in that case.

 

[Zeock]

I went to a private school from Reception to Year 6, but I don't think it really helped me much, except for the much reduced class sizes compared to state schools (there were about 15-20 children in each class). It is definitely unjust because people who have more money shouldn't be able to 'buy' a better education.

 

[Funcone]

There probably are situations that you can make a case for, for example for the children of certain people in the military (although we could have a small number of state boarding schools for those situations), but by and large, they should be banned.

The UK clearly is one of the least socially mobile societies, and that’s an issue for us all. A lot is made of Brexit, but why wouldn’t you want a society where the best talent rises to the top? One of the problems with private schools is that their superior results don’t just come from giving people a better education, but from being better at gaming the system. People at private schools are much more likely to get extra time in exams because they’ve been diagnosed with things like dyslexia. They’re more likely to appeal results and have them raised. They’re more likely to use International exam boards with lower standards. During Covid the inflation in results at private schools was much bigger than it was for state schools.

The tops of most professions are dominated by people from private schools. For somethings you could question how much of an issue it is. But when things like senior civil servants and judges are dominated by people from private schools, it becomes a significant issue. Roughly 60% of judges went to private schools. I do understand that if you abolished private schools wealthy people would still find ways to get their children into the ‘right’ schools, for example by buying the right postcode, or taking their kids to church for a year (should we have religious schools? That’s another issue). Private schools don’t have to follow the national curriculum. Often that gives kids an advantage in exams, but when it comes to private schools with a strong religious agenda, it can lead to the kinds of things that have been heavily criticised by Ofsted.

I suppose the thing is the UK is clearly in a right mess. We’re now the 14th strongest economy in Europe based on GDP per capita, and really how many great British businesses are there these days? Our public services are in a right state. We’ve got a humungous national debt. We’re the second most unequal society in Europe. We’re also one of the least socially mobile. If you were a working class person accused of a crime, or a working class person who'd been the victim of a crime, would you want the majority of the people dealing with your case, from the judge to the barristers, to be people who went to a small club of private schools?

Getting rid of private schools would have its risks, but are we happy with the status quo? One of the biggest hindrances to the economy is the lack of social mobility and a crippling lack of talent at the top of society. When most judges and senior civil servants went to private schools, this isn’t just about personal choice, because these things clearly affect everyone else. The nature of society is that one person freedoms often infringe on someone else's. Someone might want to drive at 90mph to get to the pub quicker. But we don't let them. Similarly, someone might want to send their medicore child to a private school to get them a high paid job as a judge or a senior civil servant or an investment banker or an MP. Why should that be considered a matter of parental choice? Most parents don't have that choice because they don't have the money. There are only so many high paid and influental jobs, so if we allow rich people to give their kids a big leg up, it means that someone else's kid is getting pushed aside.

 

[rob666]

But perhaps, after political events of the last decade or so, we could possibly start a little fire at Eton?
Not that I would advocate arson of course.
But...

 

[Matt.GC]

I see the rich are doing what they always do when they're likely to be taxed more - making empty threats.

They won't send young Tarquin and Gideon to state school to get beaten up for their dinner money if fees go up. If they needed to for the sake of paying 20% more then they're clearly stretching themselves sending their little darlings to a snooty school in the first place.

 

[WillPS]

I don't think it should be abolished but I think this is exactly the sort of privilege that should be taxed through the absolute eyeballs. VAT is only the start with things like this, I'd probably aim for a 50% fee premium, not payable on genuine open-access scholarships.

Bring it in over September intakes staggered over 5 years, offer a path by which they can convert to free schools over the same time period.

 

[venny]

Taxation changes are one thing. Banning them is something entirely different.

The very definition of levelling down.

 

[Funcone]

For a lot of things, there are only so many positions in a society, so levelling up will involve an element of levelling down. There are only so many CEOs etc. If you want to have more women in top positions, you have to have fewer men. If you want to have more disabled people, you have to have fewer people without a disability. If you want to have more people from ethnic minorities, you have to have fewer white British people. If you want more working class people, you have to have fewer middle and upper class people.

Society will never be completely fair, but in most fields 50%-60% of the top positions are taken up by people from private schools, when only about 7% of the population go to private school. The 25% most expensive private schools are particularly over represented. A lot of the politicians and civil servants making decisions about our education system didn’t go to state schools, and send their own kids to private schools.

Getting rid of private schools wouldn’t make things perfect or absolutely meritocratic, but it would help. Can we afford to get rid of private schools? Can we afford not to? Our economy is in a complete mess. Trying to make the people running our big institutions more diverse and more talented sounds like a good thing.

If the most talented working class people can rise to the top, some of the least talented upper class people will start falling down through the system. Is that levelling down? Maybe. But what’s the alternative? That we keep on shoveling inept people into the top positions, and our economy keeps on tanking?

 

[BigT]

Should we get rid of private hospitals? How about private dentists? It’s the same question really.
Or how about this question, do you trust the state to educate your child or do you want to give them the best start possible?
My daughter goes to private school and whilst some parents are very wealthy there are also many who are not, they give up things like holidays etc. to send their children to private school.
Parents that send their children to private schools effectively pay twice anyway as I don’t get a tax reduction for not using state schools, abolishing them or removing their charitable status will raise no extra revenue it will just cause more children to clog up the state system.
Private schools also aren’t businesses, they are generally not for profit foundations originally set up by churches etc.
It’s like calling The National Trust a business, they also employ chief executives on huge salaries and charge entrance fees.
As for why children from private schools do better? Maybe it’s because they are open longer hours so they work a lot harder, my daughter is at school from 8:30 till 17:30 six days per week.

 

[rob666]

Private schools are businesses.
They are run on business lines, under the shield of charity.
They are a charity for the rich.
No parents to pay the fees, no school.
In a recession, lots go bust.
Sounds like business to me.
Private hospitals and dentists don't educate the future leaders of the state, private schools do, providing that select, elite, self perpetuating club of establishment cronies to run the nation.
Feel free to correct my stats, but something like 7% of the nation is educated privately, but those schools provide 70% of the cabinet and top civil service positions.
Why?
Can't poorer people be educated to the same level?
Many parents can't afford holidays, so do not have the opportunity cost option to give up the holidays to support their kids education.
Does lack of resources mean thick and undeserving?
Eton school, for example, has done so well for the last couple of generations, providing fantastic, balanced understanding leaders who have done a great job leading this great nation.
Possibly.

 

[Islander]

Correlation =/= Causation.

Just because most recent leaders have been terrible, and have come from private schools, does not mean that they are terrible BECAUSE they had a private education.

I’m not saying it’s categorically untrue, but it can’t be proven one way or the other


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[BigT]

Private schools are businesses.
They are run on business lines, under the shield of charity.
They are a charity for the rich.
No parents to pay the fees, no school.
In a recession, lots go bust.
Sounds like business to me.
Private hospitals and dentists don't educate the future leaders of the state, private schools do, providing that select, elite, self perpetuating club of establishment cronies to run the nation.
Feel free to correct my stats, but something like 7% of the nation is educated privately, but those schools provide 70% of the cabinet and top civil service positions.
Why?
Can't poorer people be educated to the same level?
Many parents can't afford holidays, so do not have the opportunity cost option to give up the holidays to support their kids education.
Does lack of resources mean thick and undeserving?
Eton school, for example, has done so well for the last couple of generations, providing fantastic, balanced understanding leaders who have done a great job leading this great nation.
Possibly.

You could repeat your argument for nearly every charity, no income no charity.
Most private schools gain charity status by the fact they are not for profit organisations, organisations that often go back 100’s of years to a time when most children didn’t even get an education, set up precisely to offer just that to local children.

Home - Independent, Academy and Maintained Education | Woodard Schools

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Parents that pay the fees also subsidise bursaries for less well off children to attend , the schools themselves offer their facilities to the local community and often state schools in the area as well but I suspect you just have the option that private schools are bad and parents that send their children there are all multi millionaire tax dodging scum, the reality however couldn’t be further from the truth.

I’m not a multi millionaire but to be honest about it VAT on the fees wouldn’t make much difference to my life but it would to some parents.
It’s not even about raising revenue because the little money it raises would instantly be swallowed up by pupils enrolled back into the state sector so let’s just call it what it is, it’s a shabby attempt by the Labour Party to win working class votes by sticking one into the Tory scum middle classes.
But they forget one thing, in the words of two jags John Prescott himself, We are all middle class now.

 

[Funcone]

I do agree that the current cabinet aren’t much cop, but I think this goes a lot further than that. Britain’s really sinking as an economy. We are still a rich country, but look at how many of our businesses have been sold off to foreign owners. Look at how indebted we are. When you add up the government’s debt, businesses’ debt and personal debt, we’re one of the most indebted countries. Walk around a typical house and see how little of it is manufactured in the UK. Look at how our trade balance has deteriorated, or how our GDP has fallen relative to a lot of other countries. Brexit is showing how reliant we are on importing skilled workers from other countries. Politicians like to talk about Britain being entrepreneurial, but what are the recent start up successes? Look at the growing number of people needing food banks to survive. The growing number of postcodes with a falling life expectancy. The massive rise in people sleeping rough on the streets.

As an economy things aren’t working. We’re a society built around property bubbles and dubious financial institutions that are often heavily linked to money laundering.

When things aren’t working, it makes sense to look at what we could do differently. This isn’t about envy or stereotypes. It’s about having a difficult conversation about how we can make a better society, and a more prosperous country. Improving social mobility so that the best talent can rise to the top, seems like a sensible way to go about it. And banning private schools is probably one of the single biggest steps you could take to improve social mobility.

 

[rob666]

You could repeat your argument for nearly every charity, no income no charity.
Most private schools gain charity status by the fact they are not for profit organisations, organisations that often go back 100’s of years to a time when most children didn’t even get an education, set up precisely to offer just that to local children.

Home - Independent, Academy and Maintained Education | Woodard Schools

woodardschools.co.uk

Parents that pay the fees also subsidise bursaries for less well off children to attend , the schools themselves offer their facilities to the local community and often state schools in the area as well but I suspect you just have the option that private schools are bad and parents that send their children there are all multi millionaire tax dodging scum, the reality however couldn’t be further from the truth.

I’m not a multi millionaire but to be honest about it VAT on the fees wouldn’t make much difference to my life but it would to some parents.
It’s not even about raising revenue because the little money it raises would instantly be swallowed up by pupils enrolled back into the state sector so let’s just call it what it is, it’s a shabby attempt by the Labour Party to win working class votes by sticking one into the Tory scum middle classes.
But they forget one thing, in the words of two jags John Prescott himself, We are all middle class now.

Jesus on a bike, the best you can dig up is Prescott having two cars two decades ago...quality argument!
What relevance does that have to a discussion on the merits of private education?
Just slag off the opposition when the argument is lost...
Most private schools no longer need to be in place by your argument, the state provides free education for all now, there is no need for charitable double provision.
If you wish to take your kids out of state provision, do so and pay for it in full.
No need for charity, do you really want your kids to be seen as charity cases. ?
Edit...and Prescott owns no cars now, just to bring your point into current times.

 

[Matt.GC]

I think it's healthy for my kids to go to a state school. All 3 are doing very well, my eldest son in particular is a genius. I get that there are concerns that it can be a bit one size fits all and he does get frustrated that he's not stretched enough. But they do offer loads of extra after school clubs which he attends most nights, including Chess club, English club and Maths club. He loves his Maths so much (he's only in year 9) he's even attending seminars with sixth formers! Since the woefully underpaid teachers are doing the job because they care, they've always encouraged him and the state education all 3 have had so far so I would say has been top notch.

There's also a wealth of stuff out there. We've bought him extra learning materials for Christmas (seriously, the kid wants it believe it or not) and I don't think separating him from normal kids would have been good for his personal development. I think it also depends on the child. I would have been an ass at school whether it was a snooty school or a the crappiest state one.

But I've always been a firm believer in not isolating my kids from real life. In a state school, they go to school with kids from all walks of life, some richer than them, some poorer than them. One of his closest friends lives in a big house and has a loaded dad, another is a foster child who's very sweet and intelligent and was taken off his mum when he was young. There's more social and ethnic diversity in state schools and I've always encouraged my kids to get to know and understand that people can be good and bad no matter where they came from. They need to know that the horrible kid smoking behind the bike shed and giving everyone dead arms is a fact of life, the loaded kid who gets spoilt by his/her parents but doesn't behave in school isn't someone to admire. They need to know that everyone is different and comes from different families. I know some of this exists in private schools, but not as much diversity. School is life experience where they learn social skills, deal with difficult situations and learn how to get on with others as well as being able to name all the continents and what happened to King James lll.

Just a personal choice and I'm not criticising anyone who does choose to raise their kids differently which is their right to do so. But I don't want to limit my kids access to a diverse pool of kids from different neighborhoods and different back grounds. I think it's character building and I don't feel any of them are held back by the state system. The pros outweigh the cons for me.

 

[BigT]

I think it's healthy for my kids to go to a state school. All 3 are doing very well, my eldest son in particular is a genius. I get that there are concerns that it can be a bit one size fits all and he does get frustrated that he's not stretched enough. But they do offer loads of extra after school clubs which he attends most nights, including Chess club, English club and Maths club. He loves his Maths so much (he's only in year 9) he's even attending seminars with sixth formers! Since the woefully underpaid teachers are doing the job because they care, they've always encouraged him and the state education all 3 have had so far so I would say has been top notch.

There's also a wealth of stuff out there. We've bought him extra learning materials for Christmas (seriously, the kid wants it believe it or not) and I don't think separating him from normal kids would have been good for his personal development. I think it also depends on the child. I would have been an ass at school whether it was a snooty school or a the crappiest state one.

But I've always been a firm believer in not isolating my kids from real life. In a state school, they go to school with kids from all walks of life, some richer than them, some poorer than them. One of his closest friends lives in a big house and has a loaded dad, another is a foster child who's very sweet and intelligent and was taken off his mum when he was young. There's more social and ethnic diversity in state schools and I've always encouraged my kids to get to know and understand that people can be good and bad no matter where they came from. They need to know that the horrible kid smoking behind the bike shed and giving everyone dead arms is a fact of life, the loaded kid who gets spoilt by his/her parents but doesn't behave in school isn't someone to admire. They need to know that everyone is different and comes from different families. I know some of this exists in private schools, but not as much diversity. School is life experience where they learn social skills, deal with difficult situations and learn how to get on with others as well as being able to name all the continents and what happened to King James lll.

Just a personal choice and I'm not criticising anyone who does choose to raise their kids differently which is their right to do so. But I don't want to limit my kids access to a diverse pool of kids from different neighborhoods and different back grounds. I think it's character building and I don't feel any of them are held back by the state system. The pros outweigh the cons for me.

That works for you and I’m glad for you but don’t fall into the trap and think private schools are full of stuck up rich kids, they aren’t, they also come from all walks of life.
Yes there are obviously less council estate kids but kids are still kids and smokes and drugs find their way into private schools just as easy as state ones.
The biggest difference is that most private schools have entrance exams so they are selective who can get in on ability similar to the grammar school system, that system is not available near me so my daughter actually asked me if she could go to the school she attends, rather than I’m some snob.
She has friends that go to state school including her best friend, it doesn’t mean she misses out on diversity just because she goes to a perceived posh school is just she is not held back by thick kids like I was.