Private schools (in the UK)

[ursus arctos]

I understand your point, but isn't there an argument that given the current state of government finances, it is more advantageous to "nationalise" a portion of their assets through taxation rather than engage in a bitter legal battle that would very likely lead to the schools' being awarded some compensation?

[johnr]

Good point. Maybe the commitment could be longer term - 'we commit to abolishing private education over the next 10 years'.

[DCI Harry Batt]

as opposed to private health (which, at the very least, lessens the workload of the public services

I haven't read the whole thread - did anyone ever point out that this isn't true?

[NHH]

Excellent. Remove charitable status next.

[Guy Profumo]

I haven't read the whole thread - did anyone ever point out that this isn't true?

Who said this btw?

[DCI Harry Batt]

Yeah. And then bulldoze them.

[San Bernardhinault]

I understand your point, but isn't there an argument that given the current state of government finances, it is more advantageous to "nationalise" a portion of their assets through taxation rather than engage in a bitter legal battle that would very likely lead to the schools' being awarded some compensation?

The amount of money raised through taxing these institutions surely provides nothing like the value that totally eliminating fee-paying and selective schooling would have to society. Bulldozing these institutions would probably be the single best thing any British government could do. It's hard to think what amount of cash it would take to make it not worthwhile.

[ursus arctos]

The people you are trying to penalise will just send their kids to posh schools in the US, Switzerland, etc (after which they will continue to go to Oxbridge), and the fisc will be out billions in compensation.

[San Bernardhinault]

I'm not trying to penalise anyone. The rich kids will benefit by not turning into Jacob Rees-Mogg. Also, 7% of kids are currently educated in these institutions in the UK. They won't all be off to Switzerland or Vermont.

[ursus arctos]

Rees-Mogg's will.

It will take a great deal more to bring the sunlit uplands.

[DCI Harry Batt]

We can bulldoze oxbridge while we're at it.

[Hot Pepsi]

Don’t do that. Think of the tourist trade.

I’m with UA. It’s not worth the fight. Rich people will find a way to buy advantages regardless. Better to tax rich people and put the money into better public schools to close the gap between public and private.

That’s mostly what happens in the US, but public schools get most of their money from local taxes, so there is a huge gap between the rich public schools and the not rich ones - much bigger than the gap between public and private overall, I’d bet.

It would never fly here. It would be considered an attack on religious freedom, and maybe it would be. And so many policy makers here have a deep faith in the power of “competition.”

[Nefertiti2]

So much of what is described as "competition" is about fixing the competition, or giving the wealthy an unfair advantage.

[San Bernardhinault]

We've been trying to tax people to try and reduce the gap in Britain for well over half a century. It's not really helped. And people are willing to pay more and more to try and differentiate their kids, to try to use wealth to create an artificial advantage.

Sure, rich people will buy advantage under whatever the circumstances are, but to have it institutionalised is abhorrent and utterly corrosive. It is deeply corrosive both to public education and to the state as a whole in Britain. It may be that outsiders don't see how damaging it is.

Also, frankly, it would be great to attack "religious freedom" in this circumstance. Parents shouldn't have the right to impose an inferior education on their kids because of their religious beliefs. They shouldn't be able to opt their kids in to prayer and out of science. That is borderline abuse.

[ursus arctos]

You've been gone too long, SB

[DCI Harry Batt]

We can do some kind of VR for the tourists.

[San Bernardhinault]

This and the monarchy are really the only two things I feel properly revolutionary about. On everything else I'm pretty much a centrist Elizabeth Warren-style capitalist.

Equalising opportunity properly by doing what's possible to eliminate financial advantage in education seems to be essential to any sort of equitable society. And allowing those most able to improve the public education system - politicians and the best educated with the best jobs, and so on - to opt their kids out of public education massively reduces the pressures to improve standards.

[ursus arctos]

I genuinely appreciate your point of view and the strength of your opinion, but your description of UK tax policy hasn't had any basis in reality for decades.

[DCI Harry Batt]

A 99% wealth tax would leave Bezos a billionaire. You ain't eliminating financial advantages with taxation.

[ursus arctos]

A wealth tax?

You sure about that?

[Hot Pepsi]

Also, frankly, it would be great to attack "religious freedom" in this circumstance. Parents shouldn't have the right to impose an inferior education on their kids because of their religious beliefs. They shouldn't be able to opt their kids in to prayer and out of science. That is borderline abuse.

The Supreme Court wouldn’t agree nor would the majority of voters in many, perhaps, most states. That’s not likely to change. The Amish, for example, don’t go to school past 8th grade (IIRC). Their right to live that way is well-established.

I don’t particularly trust the judgment of parents to guide our education system, but I don’t really trust the state to do it either, because ultimately it’s the same people. Parents are the ones who, as you say, opt their kids into prayer and out of science, among other bad ideas. But those parents are also the people who vote for all the politicians that create school policy.

There is no body of omnipotent, benevolent elders that we can turn to guide our education system. It’s just us, and we are, collectively, pretty stupid. We have established separation of church and state in public schools (or mostly, I think), and that’s probably the best we can do for the foreseeable future.

If religious nut parents couldn’t send their kids to religious nut schools, they’d be more inclined to use politics to get their crazy ideas into the public school curriculum. They do that sometimes anyway, but it would be way worse if they had to send their kids to public schools. I get that abolishing private schools would force more parents, especially wealthy ones, to care about public schools, but in some cases, it’s just as well that they aren’t paying attention to the public schools.

l wouldn’t want a situation like France’s where Muslims and other minority cultures are suppressed supposedly for their own good. Trying to use the force of the state to get “backwards” religious people to be more modern or secular has never worked very well. It doesn’t change a lot of minds. They just perceive it as an existential threat and fight back, sometimes violently.


I don’t know if parochial schools and schools with a religious affiliation are necessarily “inferior.” In some districts, they are the best schools. And the Quaker and Episcopalian ones are often downright posh.

“Christian” schools, especially in the south, were often founded just to get away from for desegregation, and I’m sure a lot of them are awful and abusive. But some parochial schools help a lot of kids who’d be lost in the local public schools. So it’s not all bad.

[DCI Harry Batt]

A wealth tax?

You sure about that?

How do you mean?

[ursus arctos]

My operating assumption is that Bezos has less than 100 billion after the divorce settlement

That we are even talking about figures of that magnitude is, of course, obscene

[DCI Harry Batt]

Ah right, ok. Well I think the general point still stands anyway. It is, indeed, obscene. And not fixed by tax.

[ursus arctos]

Tax policy cannot fix anything on its own, in a vacuum.

It can, however, have a significant positive effect if applied intelligently and consistently. It can also have a significant detrimental effect if applied cynically in the service of the rich, as recent experience in each of our countries of residence demonstrates.