Should private schools be banned?

That's a very good point, the statistics are skewed, but then you get into the problem of fewer applications from state school students and why that is.

You don't send you kids to private school so they come out well-educated, you send them to private school so they come out as one of the social elite, with the plummy accent, deportment, contacts, and sense of unbridled self-entitlement that will allow them to walk into any job they like.

Its the system by which the upper classes maintain their steely grip on the reigns on the country.

Where did you get this idea? I can't believe that the majority of students don't progress this far - I went to a state school and all but a handful went on to A-level/equivalent, and of those a large majority then went on to university. I believe the same is true for many other state schools I know, though in fairness I don't come from London or an inner city area where I suppose the statistics might be different. A lot of people who went to private schools really look down on state schools without knowing anything about them, and these assumptions really annoy me. If you're bright, you'll do well whether you're in private school or not. You're also less likely to be condescending about it.

Well, to play the devil's advocate - I went to one of the top schools in the country, in fact when I left it was the top mixed state school and one of the top 10 of all schools in A levels (and I think GCSEs), it was certainly better than the local, but very famous, private schools.

However, we still lost some of our top teachers to private schools - our physics department was, for 3 years, the 'best department in the country' in any school, then all but one of our physics teachers got head hunted for big wages at private schools, with free housing, etc. Never again has our physics department scaled such heights.

Thus, even the top state schools in the country can't compete for the best teachers and private schools do have a negative impact on the quality of education received by those in state schools simply because the best teachers are drawn away from them.

Further - another major reason for sending you children to these schools is that they meet people who then give them jobs, if these people were spread out away from each other (i.e. rich people not chucked together with rich) then the contacts made would be more 'fairly distributed'.

I still don't think you solve the problem by banning private schools though. In this particular instance, the problem is that your state school is offering wages and benefits which do not match the quality of teacher that they have, so obviously those teachers are going to leave for whichever school does provide it.
Once again, banning private schools does not mean they are now being remunerated to match their skill, to solve the original problem. It just means that they now have nowhere to go to get fair payment (other than perhaps leaving for a different profession altogether).

When I say that state schools are failing to provide education of a sufficient quality, part of the definition of "providing education of a sufficient quality" is attracting, employing, and retaining teachers who can actually do this.

I wouldn't really call this more "fairly" distributed.

Having said that, I went to a well known private school myself - I don't know of a single person who got their job this way though.

Come off it buddy - I don't think private schools should be banned either, but firstly, I already made the counter argument that you're trying to persuade me of, so I've probably already considered it and I'm really not impressed by your presenting me a long-winded version of what I already said.

Secondly, the very fact that those teachers were at my old school for a number of years proves that they are willing to work in the profession for state school wages.

Third, obviously state schools will NEVER be able to pay the same as private schools to teachers - ridiculous to think that they would - so it's inevitable that the existence of private schools attracts better quality teachers to the higher wages at private schools. By abolishing private schools you would clearly, 100%, get more of these high quality teachers in state schools and stop trying to pretend otherwise.

Yes some of them would quit, but some/MOST of them are there because they like teaching, not money, although they like teaching for more money than for less money - you seem to have this rich-person free market view that everybody only does anything for money, whereas a more centred sensible view is that most people choose what they want to do, and try to get as much money for it as possible and are willing to offset certain aspects of their job/lifestyle in search of more money, but not necessarily completely give it up.

A much better argument against what I said would have been - there is no formal evidence, nor compelling logic, that a couple of extra good quality teachers per state school would make a big difference to overall teaching. You could also have considered making the point that, although these teachers are brilliant for highly motivated pupils at expensive schools and top grammar schools, completely different skill sets are needed for children with low ambition/motivation.

My counter arguments to these points that you haven't made, include that good teachers would likely be attracted to top state schools, and (as I made the point earlier) top state schools are often much better than even decent private schools (i.e. pupil quality, pupil amibition - therefore well suited to these teachers'. This would have a trickle down effect, dislodging teahers of more appropriate skill sets into these more 'challenging schools' that would likely actually have a much more significant effect, both in terms of structure (where teachers work) and in terms of pupil outcomes, than just placing a couple of decent teachers in every other random school.

True, but it would have a greater chance of increasing social mobility which would, ultimately, be fairer.

The suggestion about rich contacts being distributed more evenly through society might increase social mobility, but it doesn't increase meritocracy. It would still be the case that the most suitable candidate potentially can't get the job because the employer isn't one of his contacts. This type of social mobility does not make anything fairer, because is not merely the product of meritocracy - rather, it is enforced separately.

I think a random allocation of anything is much fairer than an allocation based on some arbitrary irrelevant characteristic (e.g. richness), neither of which are as fair as meritocracy.

Neither would this be 'enforced' in the way you seem to be suggesting.

Explain to me why this is wrong?

Why do you think that allocating something randomly is fairer than allocating it according to a an arbitrary characteristic which is randomly assigned at birth? In terms of fairness it's exactly the same. People receive or don't receive whatever it is you're allocating as a result of factors entirely beyond their control, based on an equal amount of luck in both cases. There is no more meritocracy involved in one situation than the other.

A person has to either be lucky enough to born as one of the X% of the wealthiest children, or be lucky enough to be one of the X% of children favoured by your alternative random allocation method. Whatever your formula for determining who gets it and who doesn't happens to be, it's unfair either way on whomever ends up missing out.



Banning private schools for the sake of evenly distributing contacts is another instance of hiding the symptom, not solving the problem. The problem is that method by which these jobs are offered is inherently unfair - on the basis of contacts rather than merit.

Randomly distributing contacts between rich and poor doesn't change that, or make it more fair. It just gives the illusion that it is fair, because the lack of a trend in characteristics of which people are getting the job makes it look like "anyone can do it". But not anyone can. Only those who were randomly lucky enough to know the right contacts can.

In order to increase fairness, the course of action is not to ban private schools, but to find a way to make the allocation of these jobs more meritocratic, because fairness is purely dependent on that.

I personally think they should be banned. It is unfair that everyone does not get the same education, and people are practically buying their/ child's education.
I wonder what everyone else's view is on this?

Discrimination is the differential treatment of people due to an arbitrary characteristic. You are apparently all for this...

True random allocation results in no discrimination, it might not be perfect but it's fairer than discrimination.

Hit me with your next argument that lacks understanding of basic logic, foresight, and understanding of socially acceptable legoethical principles

Why is it different to the random luck of being born intelligent / born into a stable family? These things are inherently unfair - very few people succeed outside their allotted circumstances (and I have the utmost respect for them), most just drift along with what they are given. If you instead consider the sum of wealth and intelligence, you still get an arbitrary figure that each child is born with and has no control over.

Please note, I'm not saying that because something is unfair it shouldn't be made more fair - I'm just saying I don't think this would make it more fair. I think it would lower the overall standard, and decrease freedom unnecessarily. There may be other arguments for educating intelligent children to the best of their potential (eg it's useful to society), but I don't think they have anything to do with fairness.

Well, that's a good point, but I still think that children should be treated as individuals and not as reflections of their parents. Allowing wealthy people to pay for higher standards of education strengthens the divides between the wealthiest and poorest people. I suppose it may be better to first work on improving education in state-funded schools, but I don't think private education is a good idea long-term.