Labour are punishing private schools for their success
Teachers are not usually despised by the government of this country, but if you currently work in an independent school it is hard to escape the conclusion that, if they were allowed to do so, Labour would abolish the sector in a heartbeat. They hate us. The current Secretary of State for Education spent more than two years shadowing the role without visiting any independent schools. The Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, when she was shadow education secretary, said that Labour would end the ‘privatisation’ of education. The Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in 2018 that she has ‘always and will always oppose’ selective schools, and in 2019 she was quite clear that a Labour government should ‘work to abolish private education’.
A short piece but well reading, especially as this government is not known for its intelligence. It even seems to be envious of anyone who saw through Keir Starmer and co. well before the election.
The world is not driven by greed; it's driven by envy - Charlie Munger
Those international, ambitious parents must be looking on with astonishment as we attack these schools, without any idea of what could replace them when they are gone. Instead, we should be celebrating our independent schools and the success they inject, through the many brilliant young people they educate, into countless areas of British society. If we allow their slow strangulation, Labour’s Left will have won, but we, as a country, will have comprehensively failed.
Those international, ambitious parents must be looking on with astonishment as we attack these schools, without any idea of what could replace them when they are gone. Instead, we should be celebrating our independent schools and the success they inject, through the many brilliant young people they educate, into countless areas of British society. If we allow their slow strangulation, Labour’s Left will have won, but we, as a country, will have comprehensively failed.
15 comments:
"According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, about 36% of Australian students go to non-government private schools with 64% going to public schools.
But enrolment significantly differs between primary and secondary schools. For primary, almost 69% of students are enrolled in public schools. For high school, this shrinks to 58%."
When we lived there we sent our nipper to a private kindergarten and later to a state primary school. Later in life I was approached about taking a job in Oz and it was simply assumed we'd expect to use a private school and so the tax advantages of doing this through my potential employer were laid out for me.
That potential employer was a state university.
dearieme - presumably, having approached you, they assumed you would know too much to have confidence in the alternative.
Is there VAT relief on sending your children to a billionaire Lord's luxury penthouse so they can revise in peace? If so, it should be abolished.
Sam - good point, it's all very weird. Quite puzzling too, when we remember that Starmer and his backers must have been under the impression that he could do this job. Luxury penthouses don't seem to be best places a person could choose for making contact with the real world.
The percentages involved seem to have led Labour to justify this act of vindictiveness by an extreme version of Utilitarianism and the greater good of the greater number: wrecking the school career and happiness of a small number of children is irrelevant when there is benefit for the many, however small that benefit may be.
It’s an argument which leads to the thought experiment of killing a healthy man because doing so provides life-saving transplants to three other people, but then thought experiments - or any form of thought for that matter - seem to be rare things where governments are concerned.
I guess that Grammar Schools are not coming back under Labour even though that enabled some people to rise beyond their 'normal' expectations. What I can't work out is why the Conservatives didn't bring back Grammar Schools... unless they too wanted to cut down on the competition for their own and their children's future employment prospects.
Here in New Zealand, the last Labour Government led by the Sainted Jacinda abolished Charter (private). schools. Now the National led government is making moves to bring them back. Cue cheering and applause from decent educationalists and much wailing and gnashing of teeth from Labour and the militant Teachers Unions.
Macheath - a chap once told me that a local Labour councillor explained it in the way. "Look, Steve is a lad from a good working class family, he gets some A levels, goes to university, gets a good job and starts voting Tory. We aren't having that."
That was some time ago and I don't know if it's a genuine anecdote, but there is an element of kicking the ladder away about state education. Or pulling the ladder up in cases like Anthony Crosland.
DJ - I think it's about controlling the competition for their own and their children's future employment prospects. Quite blatant really, but modern political games are blatant.
John - it sounds like something the Sainted Jacinda would do. Let's hope sanity prevails and Charter schools are brought back.
If not genuine to the letter, it’s probably pretty indicative of the limited and short-sighted mindset on grammar schools.
What they missed completely is people like my father; working class background, grammar school and then university on a state scholarship. On graduating (with a double first), he was head-hunted by industry but trained as a teacher instead, turning down offers from two high-profile independent schools to work in the state system because he ‘wanted to give something back’.
When he died, people from all over the town contacted my mother to tell her about the positive impact his teaching had had on them and their children. Yes, he voted Tory - as did his working-class parents and brothers - but arguably the benefit of his original grammar-school education for the community at large far outweighed any political considerations.
Macheath - wow, that's what I call achievement, not some tatty knighthood for "services to...". As with most things there is a personal aspect to any career. I remember three inspirational teachers from my schooldays, and over fifty years later I remember quite well what was inspirational about them.
Whether state schools attract inspirational teachers I don't know, but my impression via grandchildren is no they don't.
Me too: I can remember four excellent teachers from my secondary school - Maths, English, History, Geography.
Alas the Science was pretty poor - so much so that in my last year the old boy who was meant to have taught us Physics asked for my help. I thought that was to his credit, but nonetheless!
It was, I decided, the price you pay for having national pay scales that apply irrespective of subject. The same absurdity explained why we never received a promised metal-working class: the teacher had cleared off to make more money at a local power station.
It isn't necessary to be so complicated about this, and it certainly isn't necessary to quote statistics about the successes of private schools, or the likely cost to the state of abolishing them - those are a mere distraction.
You just need to understand that Labour is a Marxist party, and everything it does is part of a class war. Abolishing private schools hurts the kind of people who use them - that is the entire and sufficient justification, no other is required. All other factors or results are incidental, and irrelevant.
dearieme - our physics teacher was one of the inspirational ones, some of us even wanted to carry out physics experiments during lunch breaks. Geography teacher was excruciatingly dull. Knew his stuff but so dull. Metal-working teacher was scary, a martinet who gave the impression that he hated us.
Peter - yes, abolishing private schools hurts the kind of people who use them. Those who do the abolishing make sure their children go to the best state schools or whatever private schools remain and probably have private tuition too.
But the kind of people who go to private schools include the people who say they want to abolish them, if they are rich socialists. (After they've put their own children through them of course).
Tammly - that's the entertaining bit, they want to abolish them and make use of them at the same time. Only a certain type of person can do that.
Post a Comment