Do you think we should abolish private schools?

If I am a Soviet nutjob for wanting the separation of religion and the state then so be it. I simply do not believe that religious schools belong in the 21st century and do not wish children to be subjugated to religion. This country has had a gruesome history of religious tyranny.

This is extremely flawed logic. Yes, generally private schools have better teachers, which obviously helps, but the much greater influence is the atmosphere and ethos where hard work and academic success are both encouraged and rewarded.

The real problem many people find in state schools is not that the teachers cannot teach the subject, but that they cannot control their unruly pupils, who waste everyone's time and view academic success as an embarrassment.

No matter how good a teacher is, the kid still has to do the learning. They cannot force knowledge into your head. I do not think working hard in a productive environment can be classified as 'not achieving though your own steam'.

Finally just because your life is miserable, frustrating and boring doesn't mean the same is true for all the other 'people like you'.

I agree with you about unruly pupils. A lot of actual learning time at my school was wasted thanks to misbehaved dunces, although thankfully for me this was only a serious problem in Years 7 - 9 when I was in a particularly rowdy tutor group for nearly every lesson for three miserable years. Even when my class was well-behaved, the turds in my class would still have their subtle ways of making the lives of willing kids unpleasant through clever, hard-to-detect ways of teasing and bullying.

The stigma around private schools isn't totally unjustified if you had an experience like I did in my first year at uni around such people who went to them. Mind you, I found it was mainly those who study highly competitive courses like Medicine who tended to be the worst, most entitled species of human I've ever had the displeasure of encountering, whereas those who studied more laid-back subjects were much easier to get on with (in fact, I didn't even realise they were privately educated until they mentioned it). Anyway, merely an experience. I'm not saying all privately educated kids are pompous and I'm sorry for lazily typing that because that's not what I meant... it's just that most pompous kids usually are privately educated...

I wouldn't care if you decided to assume all state school kids are grotty chavs because in all honesty a lot of us probably are. I'm equally irked by both stereotypes so whatever prejudices you decide to have about us doesn't bother me; a sizeable portion of us actually are a bunch of good-for-nothing bastards who will always be downtrodden, perhaps deservedly...

So in other words you admit that what you've achieved in your life hasn't been entirely through your own steam then? 'My teachers are brilliant' - that's okay for you to say, but you're in the minority of people who have access to such a privilege that is far out of reach for the rest of us who have to think outside the box and sweat blood if we ever dare try to move up the social ladder. In my GCSEs I had to self-educate to get the best grades because my teachers didn't have enough time to cover everything. Btw I'm not accusing you of being a snob, but you can't really empathise with us because you have absolutely no experience or idea of how miserable, frustrating and boring life is for a lot of ordinary people.

That's precisely my problem with private and state school segregation. At a young age, out of no control of your own, your future is essentially mapped out for you based on whether or not you're born into the wealthiest 7% of families in this country - which, like it or not, is an unearned privilege (because it's not really your money, is it?), and the key reason why Britain will always be a deeply conservative, un-meritocratic nation. Helping the rich get the cremiest jobs through little actual merit or innovation of their own can be quite damaging for the rest society, especially when poorer-but-more-talented people are probably capable of doing an even better job of running the country...

I agree, state schools should be brought up to the same level of private schools, but it won't happen tomorrow. For the time being, the education system in this country is still a total joke and too many people are losing out in life because of it. It's a disgrace...

What it says on the tin.

I just left a private school, and I think the government should try to get state schools (the average) up to private school level before thinking about abolishing them. Why drag everyone down just in the name of faux 'equality'?

Discuss

Although it's easy to blame upper/middle class people for this incredibly flawed and evil system we have, the working classes aren't without criticism either. The main reason why state schools are often dumps is because of the dominance of disruptive pupils who have no value or interest in education

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But I believe a lot of this working class bitterness and tendency to rebel against the system comes from resentment of middle/upper class people who automatically seem to have a much better deal in life, which isn't totally unjustified and is something even I'm guilty of.

I went to a comprehensive school (an average one which receives contextual offers from universities because its results were poor) and currently, for sixth form, go to one of the best schools in the country, which is a grammar. To simply state that all or the majority of comprehensive students are lazy, don't care about education, and mess about in class is absolute tripe. Having gone to two polar opposites in the educational system in terms of results and where the students progress to, what's become clear to me is that there is no difference whatsoever between the vast majority of students attending either schools in terms of intelligence or desire; the only thing that differentiates the two sets of students is the amount they are pushed and the impact this has on the students' behaviour. Considering the standard of teaching varies hugely between private schools (and grammar, for that matter) and comprehensives, surely it seems a bit more likely that the level of teaching causes some students to become disinterested at comprehensives and be disruptive? To dismiss the population of students at comprehensive schools as all the same, or to even group the majority of them into the category of some kind of delinquents with serious behavioural problems is just wrong.

Oh and on the note about the "bitterness" of the working class towards the upper and middle classes, don't you think an eternity of systematic oppression and massive disparities would cause people to become at least a teeny weeny bit disgruntled? Private schools do absolutely nowt to help social mobility, in fact they act in the opposite fashion and are a symbol of social inequality.

I can't really be bothered to read through the 100+ replies so apologies for repetition, but this is a simple case of equality of opportunity. How is it at all fair that a simple matter of chance such as who your parents are and how wealthy they are should determine the quality of education you receive?

I would agree that state schools should be of a higher level of quality than they are, but I do not have much sympathy for the argument that we should not drag the rich down a bit, if only because this might give others more of a chance!

John Rawls' veil of ignorance is, I think, the best conception of arguments about equality of opportunity if you fancied some extra reading!

Thanks for the reference - I'll read it. Nothing worse than being someone with opinions and nothing to back them.

Meanwhile, a minor point (and yes, I'm saying this from a privileged point of view - I went to a state primary school but was lucky enough to get a scholarship to a private secondary school) is that intelligence is as much of a lottery as wealth. Nobody ever points out how unfair this is, because it can't be changed - if anything they suggest intelligent poor kids should be given more of a chance than those who are less so - but in reality it's exactly the same lottery as having rich parents. We will never have equality of opportunity. That doesn't, of course, mean we can't make things more equal, but it does suggest a slightly different approach to the same problem. (Note: this is philosophical only - I'm not seriously suggesting we give rich kids greater opportunity).

Parents choosing to give their child the best possbile education they can is not something I think should be a problem, though I hope one day that choice will not be one that is only open to those with thousands of pounds a year to spend upon that education.

However, there comes an issue when it is not just the education you received at private school that aids you in life but the mere fact you attended. This is a problem in that it prevents equality of opportunity even in a world where state schools are perfect, that there exists an Old Boy/Girl network that excudes those of equal or greater merit simply because they didn't go to a particular kind of school.

Take for example the Bar, a very prestigious profession. For the top end of the Bar Oxbridge is a must pretty much, fair enough it is where the academic elite tend to graviatate and is open to to anyone with the
grades.

I can't find Cam's stats but at Oxford for Law, probably the most common qulification for a junior barrister to hold on various stats such as the Bar barometer, state to private ratio is 90:51.

Yet, when we look at the last 'Rising Stars of the Bar' to be published which included the school and university they attended 7 out of 10 of those in the list attended private schools, for the year before it was 9 out of 10.

That to me seems somewhat flawed. Statistically nearly two thirds of those with the necessary qualifications (assuming privately educated students don't do massively better once at Oxford, which seems unlikely) are state educated, but an average of 80% of those at the top of the profession which most demands those qualifications are privately schooled. I'm not saying there is some kind of old school tie bias, but it certainly suggests it's a strong possibility.

In terms of how you stop this I'm not sure, logically parents coughing up over 30k a year in some cases want more than just 'we'll do our best' they want guarantees, and an OB network is a good way to help provide that, but I think it something that needs to be looked at.

Another thing is as a general rule many people who are privately educated come from successful families, who are successful due to intelligence and hard work. I'm not saying those who have no private education in their families are unintelligent, I just mean generally speaking two intelligent parents are more likely to have intelligent offspring, meaning many successful/high earning people are likely to have been privately educated. There is also the fact that many private schools require passing entrance exams, they are academically selective and therefore likely to have students that go on to be successful.

I am from a working class background, and wasn't privately educated so am not speaking from experience, but I think sometimes inequality can be exaggerated. I went to a fairly poor comprehensive and am now studying medicine, wanting to succeed is the main factor which determines success in my opinion.

I think these kinds of stats can be pretty skewed though.
For one things equality amongst classes for education opportunities includin Oxbridge is a much more recent advancement, many of those at the top of their profession were educated prior to the changes, the same reason there are so many male consultants in the medical profession.

Another thing is as a general rule many people who are privately educated come from successful families, who are successful due to intelligence and hard work. I'm not saying those who have no private education in their families are unintelligent, I just mean generally speaking two intelligent parents are more likely to have intelligent offspring, meaning many successful/high earning people are likely to have been privately educated. There is also the fact that many private schools require passing entrance exams, they are academically selective and therefore likely to have students that go on to be successful.

I am from a working class background, and wasn't privately educated so am not speaking from experience, but I think sometimes inequality can be exaggerated. I went to a fairly poor comprehensive and am now studying medicine, wanting to succeed is the main factor which determines success in my opinion.