I am far from alone at being horrified by an article on the front page of The Times this morning, which said this (and I do not apologise for copying in the public interest):
Seven per cent of pupils in the UK go to private schools.
A much smaller percentage go to boarding schools. That is not surprising. Stowe costs over £38,000 a year. Think how much you have to earn to do that for a couple of children.
And those fee-paying parents now feel they are being discriminated against by people they link to anti-semites and Nazis?
No doubt they feel this data from the website of the Boarding School's Association reflects social justice:
Or rather, and let me refine that a little so that the assumption is properly stated: they think it reflects natural justice.
In other words, they think that their children are being prejudiced because they are naturally the best, and so deserve this outcome.
I would suggest that this is nothing more than a eugenic argument. The assumption is that it is not the ability to pay that determines outcome or advantage here: it is that natural advantage gives that ability to pay and that pupils at these schools are then naturally the ablest and that anything that does, then, prevent their natural progression to positions that happen to then secure the highest pay and status in society is action against the natural social order. Being wealthy is not chance then. Nor does it result from exploitation or abuse. Nor is it linked to tax dodging or a limited view of the obligations one might have to society. Nor can it happen because of the capture of a rent. No, it's natural. And that means we are, apparently, wrong to suggest otherwise. And that if we do we attack the natural social order.
That is what I find most repugnant about this claim.
That and the fact that he clearly wants to perpetuate this system of eugenic advantage that he thinks exists.
Tipping points cannot be identified when they happen (usually) but these claims are, I think, important. They put a nail in the coffin in the supposed advantage of private education that justifies multiple tax reliefs for good.
They also expose the Times for what it is.
And maybe Dr Wallesrsteiner should worry about the message the Times sends his young women today. This is the full front page:
Objectification of young women (in the main) appears to be the order of the day.
He may want to think about what that says about the paper that's willing to convey his vile message.
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There’s an interesting argument that is not being made.
So State school admissions to the top two universities in an increasingly international world are up a couple of % points. The children who came through and achieved this have had the highest real spending per pupil that there has ever been. So with or without nudges being made to admissions tutors to recruit more from the State sector, if the left’s view of public education is correct, then the State educated would be achieving these higher rates of admission anyway.
But no-one, whether pro markets or pro State, is making this argument that the improved State performance has been achieved on merit. It does rather tell you something.
I presume you are aware that there have been massive reductions in spend per sixth form pupil?
Or do facts not bother you?
“The children who came through and achieved this have had the highest real spending per pupil that there has ever been. ”
Which decade are you talking about?
Just asking, because as a former deputy head who recently retired from a State school, having taught/managed for over 30 years, the figures on my charts and those of other deputies in my LEA and region did not match your assertion. In the last few years, all funding markers were showing red. Since I left, they’ve kept falling.
The Blair years were the ones when funding was increased significantly, enough to plan and offer a sufficiently varied curriculum up to the 6th form, to hire enough staff to educate children of all abilities, to ensure their well-being.
Since 2010 especially, all the State schools I know have had to cut staff and other resources because of severe cuts to funding from LEAs.
Kids from those schools, starting with sometimes huge disadvantages and yet able to get to an Oxbridge interview, deserve special consideration, because at no point in their education have they had anywhere near the same input as those who were privately educated.
I won’t even mention the home situations here, the private tuition on top of the private education, the cultural input from family and friends, the constant stimulation leading to increased confidence, the useful networks to find high quality holiday courses and work experiences…I could go on. I taught in both sectors, I saw both ‘machines’ at work.
That Headmaster’s disgraceful comments, relayed uncritically by the Times, do not surprise or shock me. I heard similar comments from senior managers and teachers in the 3 years I managed to last in the private school I worked for.
Never before have I seen them claimed loud and clear by a Headmaster in a national newspaper. The times we live in!
Charity status must now be seriously tackled by whoever is next in government.
Thanks Marie
Richard you are correct but disingenuous..your statement is based on the large increase in numbers of 16yr olds staying on at sixth form in recent years hence the “per head”.,that said if you have invested in a new swimming pool a few years ago it means more people are using it not that standards are in decline. I use this as an example which can be extrapolated…I say this in the knowledge of my wife who is twenty years in teaching and is now a deputy head.
That is not a valid comparison
You’re mixing capital and revenue spends
Based on my own direct experience I’m not surprised by this kind of sociopathic tripe from the so-called ‘Public’ School sector, nor that it would be front page news in Murdoch’s ‘faux-intelligent’ Times. I really don’t know why, in the 21st century, society at large continues to tolerate private schools that perpetuate the English regressive caste system, which seriously holds the country back from making societal progress . If not ban them then at least remove their charitable status and tax them into oblivion. I know of no other western nation where anyone is seriously interested in which secondary school someone went to. University yes but secondary school …. really? Stowe, Schmowe. Eton, Schmeton. Who cares? Well, it seems an ‘awful’ lot of people still do.
The not unrelated disparities of wealth and social / educational privilege that persist in England are nothing short of an international disgrace. As you know better than me, measured against most EU metrics and the PISA tests, we under-perform – which has been one of Danny Dorling’s principal topics for a while: “Education in England is expanding into new extremes of elitism. The covert message is that a small elite, made up of superior individuals, should lead us. The mechanism to select such individuals is being constantly honed.” (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/feb/23/england-schools-extremists-europe-tests-excludes-elitism).
As equally puzzling to me as the apparent lack of public appetite for root and branch reform is the inertia of the Labour Party. You’d think it would be right up there at the top of their political agenda. Clearly their focus groups identified that it’s not a vote winning topic which – if true – says a lot about the electorate and the LP, that is probably scared of being accused by the MSM of ‘class envy’. Yet another reason for despair.
End of rant 😉
Well justified rant
And Danny is right….
“society at large continues to tolerate private schools that perpetuate the English regressive caste system, which seriously holds the country back from making societal progress”
you missed out industrial progress – current educational structures at all levels mitigate against having a populace that is educated in the broad sense of the word and thus fit for what passes for the “modern world”.
My partner, by the way, went to Oxford in the early 1980s from a “bog-standard” secondary modern & got a double first in modern languages – in mountaineering terms I guess that’s like climbing Everst with no oxygen (or sherpas). We both wonder how the Uk would look if education was “fit for purpose” and focused on the population as a whole.
Richard
The same paper today in an article entitled ‘Normal Life Awaits Archie’ quoted Penny Junior, the Royal biographer, on the possibility that Archie might go to a state school – “If everybody used the state system it would improve and everybody would get a good education.”
The Head of Stowe wants to continue the educational apartheid of access to education based on wealth and privilege, not on ability – he should be ashamed of this conceit.
“The Head of Stowe wants to continue the educational apartheid of access to education based on wealth and privilege, not on ability — he should be ashamed of this conceit.”
Well said, John B! Private schools *are* social engineering – deliberately rigging society to keep a small oligarchic clique at the top of the pile.
From 2020/21 Scotland will be charging ‘public schools’ full business rates. Lets just say it’s not a popular idea amongst the wealthy class currently trying to find a way around the new regulations. Expect more articles as time goes on explaining why we should subsidise the folk who can afford to pay if that is the route they choose to take. Operative word being “choose”. If Oxbridge is discriminating against the wealthy then lets have more of it.
Howard Reed is quite right for his comment “deliberately rigging society to keep a small oligarchic clique at the top of the pile.” To confirm it just look at the mess that the current clique has got us into right now.
Good for Scotland!
Next tax exemption as charities
Thyen add VAT to charges… (which follows from ending the charity exemption, by the way)
Let’s face it Richard, the only iteration of Stowe ever to take seriously was the SR Schools Class 4-4-0 named after it.
Wonderful machines.
Especially when Bulleid 🙂
This stuff is so far from true, it is impossible to take seriously. I know someone intending to go to Oxford this year from a state school. The financial obstacles put in her way are diabolical. Even I was surprised and you know what a leftist I am.
Yes, Nicola and Tony, there is social engineering going on at the expense of the clever children at state schools. By people like you!