Would you Abolish Eton?

[pwa]

Just take away the charitable status and ensure Oxbridge intake of privately educated kids is directly proportionate to their portion of all the sixth forms in the country. That's fair.

[Pastychomper]

It seems to me that if private schools are giving their pupils an advantage then they should be encouraged to keep it up, preferably without net funding from the general population, and should be used as a model for some (not all*) state schools. Closing them would (a) get rid of the competition, so some half-baked state school could crow about being "the best in the land" and (b) leave the children of the very rich (a bit) less educated than they are at present, while making no difference at all to those children's chances of "success" in life.

*Not all because different people respond to different teaching styles. Besides, I don't think a country full of Etonians would be the way to go.

[Psamathe]

One problem is that parents of children in public schools still pay for education on which their children do not depend ie state education. The state just couldn't cope if they all turned up at local comprehensives one morning.

I don't see that as a problem as our tax regime can be changed at the same time. Time to reverse the ever lower taxes for the wealthy (e.g. those who can afford £40k per child per year). The increased tax income would allow the Government to create more school places and improve the state provided education (reduce class sizes, maybe some text books).

Ian

And when did governments last do that?

No idea and you are probably right in suggesting not recently - but we've has successive pretty centre/right wing Governments for quite some time now (including Nu Labour in that category).

When it comes to significant changes to education system (ending the Public Schools), then it becomes necessary to pay for it and think of all those wealthy people who can afford £40k per child per year who will ot longer have to be paying out all that money and thus can stand extra taxation without it affecting their lifestyle.

I suspect that any Government prepared to end the Public School system would also be prepared to generate extra revenue from the wealthy through taxation.

Ian

[Psamathe]

If you have the money, why can't you buy what you want?
Legally of course.

You can buy anything with enough money ..................... even an education.
Why not?

Public School system is about buying more than an education. It's about "old school tie", alumni and all the doors that opens. Do you think that Eton provides such a fabulous level of education beyond anything else in the country to justify such dominance in Government, business, etc. It's as much about the doors it opens as the education.

So parents are buying opportunity through elitism. Meritocracy rather than plutocracy or oligarchy.

Ian

[Ben@Forest]

If I was making the rules, Eton would have to accept quotas.

The family income & ethnic distribution of the college should mirror that of the UK, as exactly as possible.

Overall compared with state schools Eton and other private schools have a wide diversity of foreign students (about 5% and that does not include any diversity within the British students attending). Thus Eton will certainly have a better representation of the world population than most British state schools.

I drive to work through rural villages and towns in the North Pennines. The kids waiting for school buses are almost universally white and not Polish, Bulgarian or Romanian. By your rationale we should bus ethnic minorities into these schools to make them more representative.

I once met a Malaysian who had been sent to an expensive English public school, he'd been able to go because his father, in Malaysia, was a successful arms dealer.

[pwa]

It seems to me that if private schools are giving their pupils an advantage then they should be encouraged to keep it up, preferably without net funding from the general population, and should be used as a model for some (not all*) state schools. Closing them would (a) get rid of the competition, so some half-baked state school could crow about being "the best in the land" and (b) leave the children of the very rich (a bit) less educated than they are at present, while making no difference at all to those children's chances of "success" in life.

*Not all because different people respond to different teaching styles. Besides, I don't think a country full of Etonians would be the way to go.

Private school pupils outperform state school pupils while in school, but when they get to University they don't maintain that advantage. So a privately educated kid with straight As at A level does less well on average than a state educated kid with the same grades.

[Oldjohnw]

Despite my socialist tendencies I would not abolish private (public?) schools although I would deny them state subsidy. I would prefer that all education offered to our children was excellent and parents would not feel any need to send their offspring away from the state system.

[Mick F]

Despite my socialist tendencies I would not abolish private (public?) schools although I would deny them state subsidy. I would prefer that all education offered to our children was excellent and parents would not feel any need to send their offspring away from the state system.

Yes.
Spot on. All of it.

So parents are buying opportunity through elitism.

Yes.
As I said, if you have the money, you can buy anything you want.
'Twas ever thus.

Deny private schools state subsidy, and no-one would complain. If you can afford the private school, go for it.

[mercalia]

It seems to me that if private schools are giving their pupils an advantage then they should be encouraged to keep it up, preferably without net funding from the general population, and should be used as a model for some (not all*) state schools. Closing them would (a) get rid of the competition, so some half-baked state school could crow about being "the best in the land" and (b) leave the children of the very rich (a bit) less educated than they are at present, while making no difference at all to those children's chances of "success" in life.

*Not all because different people respond to different teaching styles. Besides, I don't think a country full of Etonians would be the way to go.

The advantage is "I went to Eton" Look at Boris/Cameron/Moggy? all duffers. Its being one of the boys, being like us etc

[mercalia]

It seems to me that if private schools are giving their pupils an advantage then they should be encouraged to keep it up, preferably without net funding from the general population, and should be used as a model for some (not all*) state schools. Closing them would (a) get rid of the competition, so some half-baked state school could crow about being "the best in the land" and (b) leave the children of the very rich (a bit) less educated than they are at present, while making no difference at all to those children's chances of "success" in life.

*Not all because different people respond to different teaching styles. Besides, I don't think a country full of Etonians would be the way to go.

Private school pupils outperform state school pupils while in school, but when they get to University they don't maintain that advantage. So a privately educated kid with straight As at A level does less well on average than a state educated kid with the same grades.

maybe but they go to Oxbridge not Wellingborough tech college

[reohn2]

If all state schools were of a high enough standard there'd be no need for private(there's nothing 'public' about them)schools.
Of course that needs funding.
Where does funding come from?
From the people,in the form of taxes.
People with the money buy education,whilst those with less,little or no money,struggle in an under funded poor education system that can be a little better than the worst depending on your post code!
Someone please explain the logic of this appalling situation.
Personal I think the need for private education stinks.

[Psamathe]

Despite my socialist tendencies I would not abolish private (public?) schools although I would deny them state subsidy. I would prefer that all education offered to our children was excellent and parents would not feel any need to send their offspring away from the state system.

Yes.
Spot on. All of it.

So parents are buying opportunity through elitism.

Yes.
As I said, if you have the money, you can buy anything you want.
'Twas ever thus.

Deny private schools state subsidy, and no-one would complain. If you can afford the private school, go for it.

I agree they should not receive state subsidy (e.g. through their charitable status or through tax relief, etc.) but to just remove those benefits would result in fees increasing which would make them even more elite open only to the even wealthier.

Ian

[Carlton green]

There has been some talk of the tax status of Public Schools but, as far as I’m aware, no one has actually detailed what that is. Some Schools do have a form of charitable status and if that is being abused then surely it’s for the Charity Commission to investigate. Public School fees don’t have VAT charged on them but at what point does education become classed as luxury goods and if it is should VAT be applied to University fees too? What about State Schools too, if they are education providers receiving money then VAT must be equally applied ... the Lawyers are really looking forward to this nice little earner and I anticipate that the number of legal challenges that they could make run well into double figures.

Personally I think that child care and all forms of education should be VAT free, education is not a luxury. Yes, Public Schools aren’t ideal but there are an awful lot of negative implications in changing the status quo (the existing state of affairs, especially regarding social or political issues).

[pwa]

It seems to me that if private schools are giving their pupils an advantage then they should be encouraged to keep it up, preferably without net funding from the general population, and should be used as a model for some (not all*) state schools. Closing them would (a) get rid of the competition, so some half-baked state school could crow about being "the best in the land" and (b) leave the children of the very rich (a bit) less educated than they are at present, while making no difference at all to those children's chances of "success" in life.

*Not all because different people respond to different teaching styles. Besides, I don't think a country full of Etonians would be the way to go.

Private school pupils outperform state school pupils while in school, but when they get to University they don't maintain that advantage. So a privately educated kid with straight As at A level does less well on average than a state educated kid with the same grades.

maybe but they go to Oxbridge not Wellingborough tech college

That is from the same universities. I think it was a finding by Russel Group unis. The state school kids on average did better at uni than private school kids with the same A Level grades. Once the scaffolding of the private school support is taken away the private school kids drop to their natural level.

[Cugel]

If you have the money, why can't you buy what you want?
Legally of course.

You can buy anything with enough money ..................... even an education.
Why not?

You can buy an assassin to kill your enemies, if you have enough money. You can buy children or slaves on which to practice unpleasant desires and procedures. You can buy the opportunity to do all sorts of other things that, for very good reasons, are also illegal. Many rich creeps do so - whilst also buying the police or other authority that might otherwise gainsay them.

But perhaps you think even these things should not be illegal as "the market should decide"? If enough monsters want something, serve it up and pocket the profits!

I feel it unlikely that you actually feel this way. But what's not unlikely is that you will make many more of these simplistic suggestions without any attempt to think them through or understand the consequences, moral issues or any of the other stuff outside of "I should be able to have what I want because I want it" (and booger the consequences elsewhere).

***********

Personally I feel that private education should be an available choice as long as the education is not damaging to the rest of society or the pupils. Certain religious schools are, I feel, damaging and should be legislated against. Eton has an abysmal record of producing sociopath power seekers, using modes of education that are infamous for doing so. I would legislate against those sorts of education - but not against all private schools.

And if a State school becomes infamous for providing a certain sort of damaging education, I'd legislate against that school too.

The difficulty is to identify and agree the class "damaging education".

Cugel