ABCDiamond

There is a difference in having the "right" to send your child to a private school, AND being able to "afford" the fees for a private school.
We all have the "right" to use private schools, if we so desire, and can afford them.

Anyway, with private school fees starting from about $800 per year ($16 per week), it isn't as if it is that expensive.

I know some parents who use State schools and pay another $2,000 per year for private tuition, after school.

rabsody

This is the unfortunate thing here, even a state school is going to cost you quite a bit! No such thing as a free education in Australia I'm afraid Assegai.

moneypenny20

Nor is there in the UK or anywhere else for that matter.

asprilla

Imagine this scenario. A parent has a choice between the following 2 comprehensive schools:
1) school "a" is local but has average academic results,
2) school "b" is slightly further away but has better academic results

All other things being equal, the rational parent will surely send their kids to school "b", hoping that their children will get better academic results.

I am not sure how you can describe this as "copping out" in any way.

Also - what are you going on about when you say "I deserve credit for sticking with my principles and sending kids to a local comp" ???? What exactly are these principles you are talking about? I am just imagining having a conversation with a person in the street and that person says "I'm sticking with my principles - I'm sending my kids to a local school" What an absurd principle.

annqldau

There is an argument that the really intelligent kids will do well in any school and that the couldn't give a shit kids will do more or less the same in most as they cause trouble where ever they are sent (could be they are the bored bright) but the argument goes you should judge the school on how well it gets the average kids to do and what sorts of grades they get so a school where 70% of pupils get above a C and 30% get B to A is better than a one where 50% get E to D's 20 % C's and 30% A to B's.

Don't Google it I'm giving a rough approximation/interpretation of the figures.

Assegai

Well at the risk of repeating myself, by sending my kids to the local comp which had the worst GCSE results in the town I was able to raise standards in that school and help promote community values - something the Labour Party was always banging on about in the mid 1990's except when Harriet Harman and Anthony Blair decided to send their kids to the London Oratory, miles away from their London homes, which was also a Grant Maintained school which they subsequently abolished on coming to power in 1997.

A better performing school is always going to be oversubscribed and preference will usually go to people who live in the catchment area. So what happens? Parents move to those areas artificially boosting house prices and gear themselves up to the eyeballs with morgate debts and cry foul when the property market goes pear shaped or they can't service those debts.

How about the people who denounce God and Christianity and then find out that the Cof E school gets the best exam results in town. Time to have a change of heart and start attending church so they can meet the criteria to get Tarquin or Sophie into that school.

Or there's my (widowed) sister-in-law who lives in a county where they have the grammar schools but doesn't even put her son in for the 11+ but sends him to a public school where he boards at a cost of £25,000 per year - more than her take home salary. Yet independent research which shows that grammar and public schools get the same calibre of students yet grammars perform better.

A few of us less snooty types do the altruistic thing and can see the bigger picture. I'll always admire Sir Paul McCartney (no raving socialist as far as I'm aware) who could have afforded the fees of Eton a million times over but chose to have his kids educated in the state sector. I wonder how many other left leaning luvvies took a leaf out of his book - not many.

RenShen

If I were trying to make a point I certainly wouldn't drag in Macca to support me!

IMHO the Beatles are dying in the wrong order

asprilla

Well, I'd be lying if I said that I understand your way of thinking. I don't think that you really are seeing the bigger picture, as you claim to be. Being altruistic means thinking about others before you think about yourself. I don't think that sending your kids to the local school can be interpreted as an act of altruism.

Isn't it fairer to say that you are an idealist and you have a bit of a chip on your shoulder about people who don't share your ideals?

Consider this - I would love to live in a world where our kids all get quality free education, where they all get treated equally regardless of their parent's wealth. But that doesn't mean that I need to resent those who feel that they can use their wealth to provide a better education for their children.

Ps - I would also love to live in a world where pubs give beer away for free. But it is never going to happen, so instead I make the best of the world I live in.

rabsody

Well looks like I am well and truly in the minority here but I can see where you are coming from.

The more we remove our kids from state schools because we are worried the standards aren't high enough, the less money gets spent on them and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I admit it's not always that cut and dried - I am lucky enough to have a decent state school nearby, if that wasn't the case then I think I would feel compelled to either move or send them private.

rabsody

Yeah but you pay taxes and then are forced to pay either private fees or state school fees on top! What happens if you are on the bones of your arse?

NKSK version 2

I've been trying to think whether it is or isn't free in the UK.
It's certainly more free there than here!

asprilla

I can appreciate that people don't agree with the idea of private schooling, and that they would never send their kids to a private school (a-la paul mccartney). Fair enough, there are tonnes of people who feel the same way.

The part I don't understand is that Assegai appears to have chosen a local comp with a very bad academic record when (I could be wrong here..so forgive me if I am) he/she had the option to select another state school with a better record.

rabsody

I suppose the point is the more parents opt out of state education the less onus is placed on the govt. to provide a decent education for all, hence it becomes a user-pays system. You ain't got the dough, you don't get the education (or anything decent anyway).

You could have the next Nobel Peace Prize winner who happens to be born into a family in a very low socio-economic area; it's not his fault his family are poor and the country may well lose that potential to boot if it is not harnessed.

This is a bit close to my heart (as you can probably tell) as my nan got a place in a grammar school and was unable to go because they could not afford the uniform and also my grandad (who is incredibly intelligent) was unable to gain a "proper" education due to socio-economic status and they impressed on me the social justice element. Grandad went back to night school in his 20s to gain that education but he was never able to go to university which was his dream. They tried to impress upon me the importance of education and of course I didn't listen to them, left grammar at 16 and then at 34 decided they were right after all and am studying at uni!

I just think it is inherently wrong that because of your status at birth you are denied the right to a decent education in Western countries that are so wealthy.

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now and will try to shut up!!!!

IvanM

The philosophy and non academic aspects of a school are equally important. Teaching the values of team work, culture, help thy neighbour, confidence and the other values important for life that are essential for forming a well rounded individual.

I have no objection to private schools as long as the public system is adequately funded. I see no point in subsidising private schools at the expense of the public system. At the moment I am highly likely to put my boys through private due to the inadequacies of NSW public.

Assegai

This thread has probably run its course but anyway...firstly I don't really get yr free beer analogy.

Being altruistic is not depriving another parent of a school place in his/her catchment area by sending your child to school miles away in his catchment area a-la-Harriet Harman/Anthony Blair. The reason I chose the kids' school over others despite it's poorer GCSE performance is that it was the local school. It meant I wouldn't have to get caught in traffic jams or subject my kids to long bus journies. If I hadn't lived where I did I but a couple of miles away, I would have chosen a different (local) school.

As I have stressed before, these days the academic bar is set so low I didn't feel the need of a safety net in the form of a school that delivered better results as there was a basic framework on which to build at the school I chose. Yes I had to fill in some of the gaps left by teachers but any middle class parent worth their salt could and should do the same. I was having a chat with a lad in Adelaide earlier this year, going to Bath University, and he was denigrating some of the teaching he received at his independent school. That having been said, if public schools, grammars and "good" comprehensives were doing tougher exams than other state schools and these were recognised by established universities I would see the argument for getting yr kids into those schools but as I said earlier the staple diet of GCSEs and modular A'levels seems to be the universal norm accepted by universities.

I don't wear a hair shirt on this issue. When my lad was 10/11 it looked odds on I was going to up sticks and move to Kent where they had the 11+. The disparity between the sec mods and grammar school was massive (it isn't always the case I should add) and I would have been mortified if my lad had failed the 11+ and was destined for one of those failing schools. As it happened I didn't get the job so it was hypothetical. In a multicultural area where schools are divided on ethnic lines or where English may not be the first language of many of the students, a local school would not necessarily be my first choice.