UK Politics Thread

Absolutely agree that state education needs massive investment. In the infrastructure as well as the teachers. The system is fucked, people are leaving in droves (my wife included) as the stress and pay don't quite equate. The constant oversight and admin is so disproportionate. Throw in a lack of interest in non-core subjects and it's not hard to see why many turn to private education if they can afford to.

One of my mate's (very much not wealthy) has had to put both of his into a private school for different reasons. I have no idea how they are affording it tbh (debt, mostly it seems). I would have loved to do the same for my 2 but we just can't afford it. In days gone by, someone in my position would absolutely have been able to afford it.

It may be a scholarship. We had a chance to send the girl to the local private school on one but we didnt on principle but then we are surrounded by ofsted good/outstanding schools so its easier to have principles. But then what use are principles if you only exercise them when it doesnt affect you?

I agree that the education system needs root and branch reform but even by youre own admission, you are participating in the continued widening of the social divide by providing your kids with an education most people cant afford. Which is fine, family first and all that but 'schools are shit so fuck everyone else' is also a stance that could have your leftie card revoked in some circles.

Yeah, its fine, like I say, i get it. Its just that its a problem because it affects you. For 93% of the country, its an absolute win.

Im guilty of it, too, because its the same logic as private medicine infecting the nation, propping up a deliberately underfunded NHS. I get it free with work so my three month wait is now three days. Bad service becomes not bad if you have money.

Would I be happy to lose that if it got the shit taxed out of it to fund the NHS? Yeah, probably, but it would suck.

Fwiw, I don't remotely believe that parents shouldn't be able to make choices about their kids' education if they want to.

I just think that the schools which are run as businesses and are making a ton of money doing so should not have tax breaks and charitable statuses unless they are specifically providing services which should legitimately qualify them those statuses.

Businesses run for profit must pay appropriate taxes. As for Facebook, for Eton (or whomever).

If those businesses then choose to pass those profit-affecting costs onto their customers, then that is a situation between them.

OK look I'm talking more about general principles than the specific policy of keeping or removing tax breaks. I guess I probably support the removal of tax breaks, at least on principle. But I really hope it's properly costed, by which I mean they've done some careful analysis on how it will impact the state school population, because for sure it will push some parents out of private and into state schooling. So is it really anything more than a cosmetic nod to the base? Or is it a serious attempt to reform the education system?

I would say I'm surprised they haven't gone hard on education, as Blair did. But i guess a)Reminds people of Blair and b) everything else is fucked too so got to prioritise.

Further to his previous statement, my client Mr dogbot would like to add "Allegedly"

I don't really have any skin in the game as it were, but I do have nephews/neices/other hangers on whose future I do care about.

But I would say, abolish private education. Then you would see a real clamour for reform in public education, they did it in Iceland and they're not doing badly.

I'm kind of interested as well in the models of academies tbh. I was talking to my brother yesterday and he was moaning about the cost of school uniforms. He has two kids at a particular secondary school and was commenting on the cost of a branded pair of trousers. They take a regular pair of trousers that cost about £5, apply a brand and charge £22. I haven't looked any of this up, but is that profiteering or is that going back into the school budget?

I listened to a podcast about how everything is framed through the lens of economics, so everything is subjected to a cost benefit analysis, through inputs leading to outputs, how do you even measure that in education? Testing scores mostly, but that doesn't take into account the mental well being of a student, just that you try to move that student on to improve test scores.

I know schools that hold regular fundraisers from parents to buy normal school supplies. Why is that normalised?

So yeah, abolish private education. It's only a meritocracy if everyone is starting from the same point.

Cost of uniform is nothing compared to a full wardrobe of clothes deemed cool enough to not get ridiculed by your peers. 

school fundraising events aren’t anything new, I went to jumble salea and summer fairs in the 80s, but now they’re essential to the budget in my kids staunchly upper middle class located primary school

I really dont think thats true at all. Coats, watch, phone, bag are all big hitters regardless. 

We didnt have a uniform for four years and black trousers and white polo in fifth year when we got a new head and the things people went hard on were largely stuff a uniform wouldnt cover. Nobody really gave that much of a shit what you wore because if its not a problem, its not a problem.

Kids are fuckers and a uniform isnt going to stop them othering *something*. They were wankers with uniform and without in our school.

Yeah lack of uniform 6th form was way worse from my memory. Though teenagers are mostly arseholes either way. Hair cuts and shoes were the thing back in uniform.

I don't really get the special pleading stuff either; may just be personal experience. I was diagnosed as "developmentally slow" which was an early 90s improvement on "retarded", before they eventually settled on the dyspraxia/dyslexia thing. I guess it hadn't filtered down to where I lived at that point. Most the teachers had no idea what to do so I was regularly in detention, streamed down to lower classes and at one point they were going to put me in for intermediate GCSEs until my Mum kicked off at them. But I've got 3 degrees now so I'm not sure academically what private schooling would have done differently. Probably just the ability to shmooze and that weird sense of entitlement/over confidence they appear to have. Which I really think you ought not be able to buy.