In Finland, charging fees for tuition is illegal, which means rich kids have to mix with normal kids, which means rich families had to make sure the school their kid went to was good which meant the rich were prompted to invest in public schools, Finland, take a bow.
Palaces of Gold – Leon Rosselson
Until such time as all the millionaire business-people, politicians and establishment have to send their children to the bog-standard comprehensive we will never get the level of funding necessary to create a brilliant education system.
While an elite can give their children advantage and privilege by means of a cheque-book there will never be a level playing field.
The establishment actually have a vested interest in keeping the rest of the people down. It reduces competition. Their children can prosper at the expense of ours.
There is no reason why our children should suffer inner-city deprivation, shoddy classrooms, over-crowding, political dogma, bureaucracy, poor teachers and unimaginative lessons. Down the road the Toffs Public Schools have plenty of funding, no political interference, Ofsted or National Curriculum and can buy in the best. If one of their students is floundering they target endless support and nurture them through. While in the State system where it is fraught, under-funded and over-controlled tyranny, redeployment, sacking and fear is the order of the day.
I bet if the rich had to go to a State School we’d soon find funding and standards shooting through the roof.
Read what a highly successful ex-Secondary Headteacher has to say. I’m the only one making sense!
There seems to be a lot of loose thinking tied up in this debate. The public schools are seen as providing a better standard of education compared to the state sector.
How can this be?
In order to raise the standards in state schools we have:
Yet despite all this the state system seemingly languishes.
The public sector has none of this. They are not subject to Ofsted scrutiny, a constant stream of initiatives or the killer diagnostic marking.
The public sector has shorter days and shorter terms.
We need to get our state system functioning perfectly so I would suggest one of the following:
Either we fund state schools to the same level as public schools so that they can provide the same small class sizes, excellent staffing and facilities;
Or we abolish public schools so that all those bright middle-class kids come into the state sector and raise the standards there and their parents use all their punch to gain that extra funding;
Or we bring in the same working condition for state schools as public schools – shorter days, shorter terms, no Ofsted inspections, no stream of initiatives etc. After all if it apparently works for the public sector why shouldn’t everyone’s kids get the benefit of it?