Is private education overrated?

[rockfreak]

Loringa says that for now private education may be the only suitable option. Since it can only be accessed by seven percent of the population that doesn't seem to me much of an option. Maybe we should stop living in the past and think up new options.

[William]

There is a CH take on the history of the State vs Independent school debate and the surrounding political arguments. After the 1964 General Election, Labour (led by Harold Wilson) replaced the Tories as the governing party. One theme of Labour’s election manifesto then was “grammar school education for all.” The new Government’s first Secretary for Education was the OB Michael Stewart, who some years earlier had been the Shadow Secretary for Education for four years. So apparently the Labour Party then wanted to improve education standards by increasing access to a successful model, before its education policies changed drastically. Incidentally Stewart later became Foreign Secretary for four years, so being the most successful OB in British political history.

[rockfreak]

I'm not sure what Wilson meant by "a grammar school education for all". They were called Grammar precisely because they historically tended to cater for scholars in classics, languages and some humanities. Apeing what the posh boarding schools traditionally did. Interestingly, Mrs Thatcher closed down large numbers of Grammars when education minister. Here's Alan Bennett on the subject:
"Was asked to take part on a BBC-4 programme on grammar schools but didn't because I didn't feel that my experience was typical. I never thought of Leeds Modern, the school I went to from 1946 to 1952, as a grammar school, although I suppose it was. It wasn't so self-conscious and pleased with itself as most of the schools that feature, and the range of ability for which it catered seems in retrospect so wide it might well have been a comprehensive before its time. Nor was it in the least bit snobbish as many of the schools that figure in the programme seem to have been, though none as snobbish as the the grammar schools that, on the introduction of comprehensives, turned themselves into direct grant grammar schools. By rights all such schools should be free schools, as indeed in the light of their origins should be many public schools. The nearest public school to us in Yorkshire is Giggleswick which started off as the local grammar school. It's certainly not free today, though like many public schools its exclusiveness shelters behind a generous allocation of scholarships and bursaries. I've never been particularly concerned about the end of the grammar schools, seeing it as nothing compared with the continuing offence of the public school. The only person waving that flag in the programme is Edwina Currie, a Scouse Tory who acknowledges the continuing unfairness of public school education while knowing her party will do nothing to alleviate it."

[J.R.]

I'm not exactly sure where I stand on this.
Grammar schools are fine but 100 percent of all pupils will never attain enough education to reach uni. And after 3 years or so and a mountain of debt, no guarantee their degree will a job worthy of them.

Secondary schools used to teach skills to get blue collar work, an apprentaship or good manual skills for the future.

Expecting 90 per cent of students to achieve brilliance is counter productive.

[J.R.]

I'm not exactly sure where I stand.
Grammar schools are fine but 100 percent of all pupils will ever attain enough education to reach uni. And after 3 years or so and a mountain of debt, no guarantee their degree will a job worthy of them.

Secondary schools taught skills to get blue collar work, an apprenticeship or good manual skills.

Expecting 90 per cent of students to achieve brilliance is counter productive.

[Otter]

Secondary schools taught skills to get blue collar work, an apprenticeship or good manual skills.

Expecting 90 per cent of students to achieve brilliance is counter productive.

I agree, but the problem is that many not particularly prestigious jobs now require a university degree, which didn’t previously. Things like office admin.

And then the vicious circle that so many people have the same qualifications and then struggle to find a job as there are 100 people with the same degree applying for a menial job.

My nephew was looking for a simple job alongside his studies last year while at uni. He applied for a job filling envelopes with flyers, but didn’t get it because he doesn’t have an A-Level in English and Maths.

When jobs like office photocopying assistant demand A-Levels and even degrees, you can see why so many (non-mechanically-minded) people go to university even though it might not be the best option for them.

My grandmother left school at 15 and decided she’d become a nurse, so she turned up at the hospital, filled in a form and started the following week, with all the training as she went along. Now that would be years of studying and tens of thousands in cost. Maybe that’s a good thing in that line of work, but maybe you get my drift!

[sejintenej]

My grandmother left school at 15 and decided she’d become a nurse, so she turned up at the hospital, filled in a form and started the following week, with all the training as she went along. Now that would be years of studying and tens of thousands in cost. Maybe that’s a good thing in that line of work, but maybe you get my drift!

In principle I agree with the sentiment. Given a choice I would always go for the person who started by making the tea +(pretty literally) because they learned the job from the ground up, what the choices were and why we did what we did. THEN they would be required to get professional exams whilst working and they got a substantial bonus for passing the various stages.

The worst problems I had were with university graduates and eventually we had to sack them because they would come up with extraneous quasi legal ideas irrelevent to thew actual situation and then wastye everyone's time argueing

[Avon]

Maybe we should stop living in the past...

That seems preferable to your approach of inventing the past and misrepresenting the present.

[Pe.A]

Maybe we should stop living in the past...

That seems preferable to your approach of inventing the past and misrepresenting the present.

Boooom...!!

[Otter]

As for the titular question, I went to CH paying 0% fees because all the state schools in my area were poor to the point of officially failing or being on special measures. I’m from a low-income background but not high-need, had a conventional loving peaceful family upbringing.

With these schools locally being the only state schools I grew up
being aware of, I mistakenly believed all comprehensive schools were rubbish. When I reached university, most of my friends had been to state school and many were far more intelligent and rounded than me. It was a belated eye-opener and I realised how embarrassing my mindset was that private schools were superior in every way.

I owe a lot to my private CH education and it got me further than a state school in my locality would have. I don’t think private schools are overrated, but rather there is a snobbish attitude towards state schools, when really it’s a postcode lottery. Some state schools are fantastic, others are poor. Same as private schools.

[DazedandConfused]

Some state schools are fantastic, others are poor. Same as private schools.

That’s the sum of it for me. We live in a lovely village but with very poor secondary schools. It will be cheaper for us to pay school fees at secondary than to move house to an area we don’t like as much but with better schools. If we were in catchment for certain other state schools then we wouldn’t even consider it.

[sejintenej]

Everyone is writing about kids getting into state schools. As from the age of 11 my schooling would have stopped dead

We were 13 / 16 miles (depending on tides) from the nearest town and the bus ran on Thursday only. The other option would have been to take a ferry after 9am then a 45 minute bus ride PROVIDED the sea was not rough and the open fery stopped.
We had a primary school which in its long existance had one pupil who passed 11+ - about 12 - 15 pupils and one class covering 5 to 11 year olds. Ruler on knuckles was a daily but we learned copperplate, mental arithmetic and which plants could be used as medicines.

[rockfreak]

In reply to JR's post about grammars and academic attainment, it seems to me that Germany does it rather better. My information on this is based on a friend in Germany, some exchanges with Michael Scuffil and what I've been able to discern in research. Any one else with other info is welcome to put me right. German secondary education is called the Gymnasium system. This is nothing to do with pommel horses or parallel bars, but refers to the different educational streamings. The campus is all one but pupils are divided into a Grammar layer (Specialist, bright, and headed for a good uni), a more general intelligence layer, and a technical/vocational layer. These different specialisms go into separate buildings but on the same campus and this seems to me the important thing, because they then mingle out of class for sports, drama, hobbies, etc. As such I imagine there must be more of an inclusive feel: academics may not be sporting and vice versa, the technical people may be producing nice objets d'art, and so it becomes apparent early on in life that everyone brings something to the table. A bit like CH now I come to think of it. This is a powerful eroder of class consciousness and income inequality. Now I believe that not all states in Germany do it exactly this way because states have autonomy but this seems to me to be a typical set-up and I believe it is replicated in parts of Scandinavia. There also seems to be a bit more help with job finding after school.
It at least avoids the feeling of other, posher schools on the far side of town, and another facet is the relaxed attitude to clothing: they don't seem to have our hangup about uniforms. I don't know whether that's good or bad but it's interesting how much less of a class divide there seems to be among some of our European neighbours.

[sejintenej]

In reply to Rockfreak's information about German schools, in France pupils ARE streamed; the "intelligent" ones go to an academic school working for the Bac (and hopefully Uni but that is different question) whilst others go to what one might call trade schools which are more specialised in that area - brickies, ships crew, sportsmen/women (at 14 or so!) ...... Outside the conurbations these can be boarding schools depending on the school location. As previously mentioned one young girl had to go from the Pyrenees to Paris to attend school.

Uniforms - none stated. I haven't heard anything in France about this but American families do complain at the cost because their (usually female) offspring insist on the latest fashions, not wearing the same thing twice, etc. At least in theory all pupils should look alike if there are fixed uniforms but our experience is that schools get such a rakeoff from suppliers that parents are forced to pay a fortune to school approved suppiers for uniforms. Also not so well off parents have to get castoff uniforms in not-so-new condition. Seems to me that this arrangement easily allow for all sorts of behind the scenes payoffs for school/council/individuals. Perhaps senior staff and councillors of state schools (and their partners) should have their bank accounts audited frequently ;-(.

[jhopgood]

My grandmother left school at 15 and decided she’d become a nurse, so she turned up at the hospital, filled in a form and started the following week, with all the training as she went along. Now that would be years of studying and tens of thousands in cost. Maybe that’s a good thing in that line of work, but maybe you get my drift!

In principle I agree with the sentiment. Given a choice I would always go for the person who started by making the tea +(pretty literally) because they learned the job from the ground up, what the choices were and why we did what we did. THEN they would be required to get professional exams whilst working and they got a substantial bonus for passing the various stages.

The worst problems I had were with university graduates and eventually we had to sack them because they would come up with extraneous quasi legal ideas irrelevent to thew actual situation and then wastye everyone's time argueing

You sound like myself, when running the admin of a finance company in Costa Rica at the end of the 80's.
I needed a cashier and gave candidates some tests to ensure they could add up etc. One stood out above the rest but on interviewing him, I had to tell him that he could probably do the job blindfolded and that after a couple of months would be looking for other things to do, which I couldn't give him.
I said I would bear him in mind if another position more suited to him came up, but in an eleven man office, with virtually no turnover, it would be difficult.