How soon before the next step to privatising the state schools?

The problem with that, is that it may leave some children with very difficult long journeys in and around towns to get to school, and some parents would not be able to afford them.
You’re right, but that hasn’t changed. I couldn’t do after school activities because if I missed the school bus, the trip home involved a bus into a town centre, a walk, a wait for another bus then a walk home through the park. Not nice in the winter.

As it stands at the moment, they don't care what happens to working-class children. Because it doesn't affect their children at all. Same as the NHS

Who are they who stop state schools being well-funded, if they are?

Parents of children who go to private schools?
Politicians?

I am still not grasping the point, sorry

Possibly. But as a teacher who has been in 3 UK state schools in the last 5 years, I have seen what is available to their students. And at times, it is very little. At times, huge combined classes of 60+ children (2 put together when there aren't enough staff available to teach them). Very limited access to books. No SEN provision.

The only thing holdig state education together is the dedication of the teachers who are forced to work 70+ hour weeks.

That response was to Daisy Ann.

1) Of course state schools are massively underfunded. It is SUCH a given that anyone that isn't aware of it, is chosing not to see.

2) Firstly, government are responsible for under funding. But parents of private schools students bear a little responsibility. As do the electorate that continue to vote in a party who actively promote the widening of the gap between the haves and the have nots.

But parents of private schools students bear a little responsibility

How exactly?
Their contribution through tax is not being spent on state education.

Ground Hog Day

Yes!

DaisyAnne I have two grandchildren who attend their local state secondary school.

Callistemon21

^But parents of private schools students bear a little responsibility^

How exactly?
Their contribution through tax is not being spent on state education.

They are helping to perpetuate a system of massive inequality. That is how.

So they're not actually pinching money from state schools?

Callistemon21

^But parents of private schools students bear a little responsibility^

How exactly?
Their contribution through tax is not being spent on state education.

I should rephrase that.

Their contribution through tax is not being spent on state education for their own children.

I know some people fail to follow that logic but underfunding is the fault of government, not of those who opt out of state funded services.

I know some people fail to follow that logic but underfunding is the fault of government, not of those who opt out of state funded services.
Sorry, you are flogging a dead horse.

There is zero chance state schools will get privatized, parents were always asked to contribute to school fund and there was provision for those that genuinely could not. This winter is going to be tough for sure, we tighten our belts and do the best we can. Maybe extracurricular will suffer, core education will continue, of that I am certain.

To an extent, some state schools have already been privatised. Academy chains aren't allowed to make a profit. However, some have set up independent profit-making companies, from which they buy services such as curriculum plans or advisory services. Thus, money which should be spent on pupils is being siphoned off to individuals.

Callistemon21

So they're not actually pinching money from state schools?

The issue is that if decision-makers can afford to send their children to private schools, there is no incentive to improve provision for those who can't afford it.

I think that it has been empirically proven that middle class parents of school aged children definitely have a beneficial effect on school standards both educationally and in things like maintenance, and influencing politicians.

You certainly don’t have to be far left to understand that?

Do all decision makers do that?
IMO the fact that the better off decision makers, (and there are many more of them, than those who send their children to private schools), have more chance of getting their children into the school of their choice, so have little interest in improving the chances of state schools in poorer areas.

Callistemon21

^But parents of private schools students bear a little responsibility^

How exactly?
Their contribution through tax is not being spent on state education.

Correct. However, that won't resonate with those who falsely say "Tories want the poor in workhouses"

M0nica

DaisyAnne I have two grandchildren who attend their local state secondary school.

I'm glad you have a good one. I just have "contacts" within those who run our local Secondary School. They have no idea how they will cope with what is coming and these are the people who are responsible for making it work. Add to that the general underfunding of anything state run, and you have a perfect storm.

My point in the OP was more along the lines that this Government wants a market-only economy. By small state, they mean vanishingly small. They will know that is not entirely possible, but they now have a very short time during which they can be confident of being in government. As far as I can see they are out to destroy as much as they can of state-driven economy. If they do this, particularly in education, some children will never get the education they should as, even if the government changes, we will not be able to pull back quickly from what they have done.

I do appreciate that some will not see it this way but it is what they have been telling us they will do - if you listen carefully.

Mollygo

*I know some people fail to follow that logic but underfunding is the fault of government, not of those who opt out of state funded services.*
Sorry, you are flogging a dead horse.

Thanks for highlighting it, though, Mollygo ?

growstuff

Callistemon21

So they're not actually pinching money from state schools?

The issue is that if decision-makers can afford to send their children to private schools, there is no incentive to improve provision for those who can't afford it.

Which decision makers?

Our Tory MP sends his DC to state schools, unlike some Labour MPs whose children are or were privately educated.
Presumably he's not going to vote to deprive their schools of assets?

That argument holds no water.

growstuff

To an extent, some state schools have already been privatised. Academy chains aren't allowed to make a profit. However, some have set up independent profit-making companies, from which they buy services such as curriculum plans or advisory services. Thus, money which should be spent on pupils is being siphoned off to individuals.

Indeed growstuff. But this is what the government believe in. As do some on GN (or they think they do).

Closing our eyes to the way this ERG manipulated government thinks, means we sleepwalk towards very basic, or none, underpinning state services.

Callistemon21

Callistemon21

But parents of private schools students bear a little responsibility

How exactly?
Their contribution through tax is not being spent on state education.

I should rephrase that.

Their contribution through tax is not being spent on state education for their own children.

I know some people fail to follow that logic but underfunding is the fault of government, not of those who opt out of state funded services.

Callistemon, the logic is basic. It isn't that I or anyone else fails to follow it.

The logic I'm talking about is that as a society, we would be forced to put more money into state education if private wasn't available.

The government is voted in by the electorate. But a proportion of that electorate doesn't need the state services, therefore doesn't value them and votes for a party that will lower their taxes.

The government knows that they can get away with underfunding state education, because anyone that is important to them (friends, family, contacts et al) doesn't care.

Schools are massively underfunded and anyone that votes Tory accepts and allows this. Anyone that votes Tory, that benefits from tax cuts, is part of a system of inequality. As a society, we voted in a party that thinks ridiculously expensive wall paper that was just going to be ripped down two years later is more important than a child's education. A party that threw millions (or was it billions?) at their friends during a pandemic, for services which were mostly not fit for task.

So please don't insult me with your simple logic. Life isn't that simple.

By the same argument, anyone using private healthcare is adding to the problem with the NHS. Allowing the government to underfund it, because anyone that is anyone can afford to go private.

It's basically a massive F- you to the poor and the working class.

As things stand, public schools have charitable status, which, perhaps predictably, I think should be scrapped. By definition, many of the parents who send their children to them can afford generous contributions, and to pay for the sorts of extras that state schools need to provide (if they can afford to offer them).

State schools are underfunded, and often don't have the ability to make up shortfalls by asking parents to cough up. They are also more likely to need to 'level up' before they start teaching children who have not been socialised into familiarity with books, or other sorts of behaviour which makes teaching them possible. This situation is deeply divisive, however you cut it.

Comparisons with the 50s and 60s don't hold true. The demographics of the day meant that class sizes were larger, and expectations were lower, so what counted as a successful school would have been different, even if schools had had league tables, which of course they didn't. More able children were creamed off to grammar schools, which got better funding on the whole, and anyway the school leaving age was significantly lower than now, so less money was needed. Many people saw (and in some cases still see) education as existing simply to feed the job market, and back then there were jobs for semi-literate and largely ignorant people who just needed to pull levers or run errands. Those jobs don't exist in any numbers now - people need to have better qualifications in a wider range of subjects, so leaving without them is even more of a disadvantage than it used to be. In the past there were more opportunities for unqualified but able people to 'work their way up', either by learning on the job or by going to night classes or day release. Again, those opportunities barely exist now. It's just not comparing like with like.

Finally, poor old Diane Abbot is trotted out as a lazy example of 'Labour hypocrisy' in the same way as Mick Jagger is used to symbolise the need for means-testing pensioners. That is far more of an example of Groundhog Day than someone sticking to their viewpoint that we would be better as a nation if we allowed all citizens to reach their potential. It is perfectly possible for someone to disapprove of something being unfair, but refuse to sacrifice themselves or their children on the altar of 'parity'. Most of us probably spend far more than we really need to survive. Should we be disparaged as hypocrites for having more than one dress and taking holidays when we could pare things back and give the 'wasted' money to the poor? If we don't choose to do that, but instead opt to feed our children well, or to have a decent standard of living ourselves, does that mean that we don't care about the poor? I don't know what DA's circumstances were when her children were young (or whether her children would have needed security because of her job) but if she lived somewhere where the local school was poor, should she have condemned them to that while she worked to improve education standards for everyone?