As today ,the Labour Leader, leads his party conference on proposals to remove private school tax charitable status- effectively destroying them, leaving no choice, no competition and education at the mercy of any corporate body, with an overriding ethos of commercial awareness, not education and scant regulation , despite State financing on their activities .
THOSE parents, who pay for private education, do so out of taxed income and save the money the state would pay for their child’s education
Thus deceasing State input/deficit
If thought private education is better, then that is an indictment on the present state school system, where same amount is spent per pupil, which should be improved and regulated, rather than as now allowed huge profit from public money
No mention is made by labour of higher/further education ie universities paying no tax on huge revenue and buildings.
Labour appear the champions of the corporate monopolies and venture capitalists. Promoting self regulation. no choice and profit- a totalitarian educational profit making system
And appears to be acting with Boris, as he ploughed 14 billion State money into State schools last year
So, all is done to promote private state academies, with little regulation for their huge state budget, no competition and no parent voice, with a commercially aware overriding ethos.
So, all poltical parties are promoting state monopoly, no choice for max profit education, without any public representation possible in parliament. Such is democracy.
Below, a blog written by my daughter on her experiences three years ago, when it appears her private schools’ A LEVEL results were targeted.
I understand there are many students across Britain disappointed with their unfair A-level grades right now. However, these injustices are only being used to fulfil yet even more political agendas, where the root cause is never addressed.
Speaking as someone who’s gone to private school, and has faced injustices with the AQA marking system, as have my fellow pupils of the class of 2017, where my art class all received B grades, despite a range of ability, a partially blind man would notice, that remained unchanged even after two group appeals pushed by my headmaster (who left the school not a year later).
The only other private school’s art class in Sheffield also received an anomalously low range of results, that teachers did not even apply for a single appeal over, despite students’ concerns and disappointment. The same can be said with other Arts subjects where marking can be more subjective. This caused a notable dip in grades that could politically justify conversion to an academy status. Their Headmistress then received an MBE not a year later, despite several disillusioned students who unfairly missed out on their first-choice universities, receiving little more than indifference from tutors! One of my own 40 markers was left untouched and left me with an anomalous U grade for one of my Classics papers, several grades below my predicted grade B – it went to the same examiner for remark for which it then received a puny 3 marks!
It seems private schools, that particular year anyway, had been deliberately discriminated against politically, and there was nothing any of us could do about it!
Meanwhile, fixating on the class divide is not going to solve any problems. If there is disparity in quality of education between state and private, it does not highlight a privilege issue, but a commercial issue intrinsic in the education system that will only grow if privates are abolished, which seems to be the agenda, as there will be no choice in a corporate monopoly based on post code only.
Solely incompetence and snobbery? I see…
How reliable are algorithms which have also been used to assess students this year? I do not see these put under scrutiny. If the education system cares about the individual and them fulfilling their potential, they should have assessed more carefully students’ coursework and previous exam scores, that would give accurate guidelines for the individual’s academic ability and the grade they should have received in the end.
Moreover, how reliable are the politically correct soundbites that reverberate in the hollow social media chambers?
People have their different reasons for sending their child to private, that don’t necessarily need to be justified. Additionally, not all the parents are stonkingly affluent either, and have to make sacrifices to fund their child’s education.
Again, reducing the problem to class. Whether Labour or Tory gov, the ongoing problem will always be venture capitalist exploitation, syphoning public money into private coffers.
Personally, my parents chose to put me into private school when I was little, as it was the only way I could get away from an autism label, curtesy of my elder sister having severe autism. My opportunities to excel would have been diminished in a state school, as I would have been statemented and streamed into foundation classes in most likely ALL my subjects, no matter my ability. I would never have got my straight As and A*s at GCSE and an Oxford interview. Such is the discrimination against learning disabled in state education. Private schools don’t have the vested interest that state schools are corrupted with through extra funding for learning disabled, and the benefit reaped from their stunted education and lack of substantive scholastic achievements.
This year’s most recent and acute bout of unfair A-level marking that has apparently discriminated against state school students more based on algorithms that marry up their grade with their school’s collective lower average, seeks to put the nail in the private school coffin.
Such has been the case for years now, since Blair’s 2006 Charities Act, which removed fee-paying schools’ automatic charitable status. ‘Public benefit’ that charities must abide by has been criticised for focusing on activities more than charitable purpose.
The gun was firmly pointed at independent schools to toe the line.
By 2009 a private school was closed down every two weeks, after failing to prove their charitable status, through not reaching the set quota of bursaries they had to offer despite the fact they didn’t have the means to do so without raising fees that would put them out of business. If they didn’t pass the criteria of public benefit, the last category of which is vague, they could be easily closed down, without even going to court, illegally.
‘Independent schools can close at a moment’s notice’ – Mr St John Smith
One of the few private schools in Sheffield, Ashdell -a smaller prep school at that, (and therefore, one of the more vulnerable privates) had to merge with a bigger private school to save itself.
The price students have to pay for the orchestrated incompetence of their ‘cash strapped’ education system.
According to a Mail online 2010 article the government couldn’t actually afford to fund students still in the private education sector, as resources in state schools would be depleted. Since that article was published, Britain has faced austerity for ten years and is now officially in it’s worst recession on record. Therefore, does it make sense to put more pressure on public funding into states, if private schools are abolished?
‘Pressure’ being the operative word…
I will reiterate the crucial point; state schools receive just as much public money per pupil, as any individual paying to a private. Therefore, if states have the same money invested, why don’t they have the same value that our supposed ‘privileged’ schools have?
If there’s a disparity in quality of education between privates and publics, why doesn’t our government improve state education instead of focusing on removal of the last shrinking shred of independency and choice, that has value within the education system?
Boris Johnson has now, after ‘funding crisis‘ pledged £14 billion into states schools.
Out of our public deficit.
I wonder where that will go…
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/school-funding-boris-johnson-spending-review-chancellor-javid-a9085686.html
Yours truly,
Victimised “Toff” who’s now lost all appetite from the stress, even for her bountiful supply of caviar
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