One of the great ironies of life in Britain is how those who argue loudest for the State to have a monopoly over the provision of a particular service always seem to use private provision of that service as the benchmark of quality. We see it particularly in both education and health care. State schools seek to achieve the levels of discipline, participation in sports and academic achievement seen in the independent sector and NHS hospitals aim for the levels of cleanliness and patient care BUPA and their competitors have to maintain to stay in business.
While trying to match the private sector, our friends on the left want to abolish it. We hear various arguments in favour of abolition, the most frequently occurring is that private education and medicine allow the rich an immoral advantage over those unable to pay. Just to hear this argument gives me huge pleasure because it accepts that privately-funded schools and hospitals provide a better service than those controlled by the State. It also makes me wonder why they do not argue for all schools and hospitals to be administered and operated like the private ones so that everyone can wallow in immorally high levels of learning and physical wellbeing.
Of course it is unfair to make a direct and total comparison between independent schools and hospitals and those funded by taxes. I want to say a few things about schools today, hospitals can wait.
Generally speaking it is probably the case that a higher percentage of children attending independent schools have been raised to have good manners and a positive approach to learning. This makes time in the classroom much more productive for pupils. Although it could probably never be measured, let's assume this makes a difference of just 1% per year to what the average pupil achieves. Over the 11 years of compulsory schooling between ages 5 and 16, the total difference between the outcome for the same pupil entering a state school or an independent school amounts to just over 11.5%. Johnny Blob will score 100 if he attended a state school but 111.5 at an independent school. If the difference is 2% per year the total discrepancy after 11 years is almost 25%. These are massive figures in this context because they relate to how well a child is equipped for life by their school at the tender age of 16.
This discrepancy (whatever the true figure) is not the fault of the state schools, it is the consequence of the way the parents of their pupils have raised them and this should not be left out of account when considering how well or badly a state school is doing. It is not just in the world of computer climate models that garbage in = garbage out. I have no reason to believe that state schools do not try very hard to make up for a lack of parental discipline, the state schools I attended certainly did so. Nonetheless, the disruptive elements who can do so much harm to the prospects of their peers are predominantly in the state sector.
Independent schools also select many of their pupils by academic ability, a privilege denied to the vast majority of state schools these days. Some counties still have grammar schools and if they are anything like the one I attended they will be very fine institutions, but their numbers are few.
These two factors make me wonder how much better independent schools really are than state schools at the basic art of teaching stuff. If we remove the "mark-up" resulting from having generally brighter and better behaved pupils, we might well find that there is little difference. I can only speak anecdotally about the posh end of education (having attended a village primary school, the local grammar school and then non-Oxbridge universities) but those whose parents forked out the cost of a new car each year for over a decade tell me tales of some brilliant and some awful teachers with the majority being pretty average. Just as one would expect and just as I experienced in the state sector.
When the lefties bleat about the immoral advantages independent schools give their pupils they never identify the standard of teaching as one of those advantages. They often carp on about better sports facilities while state schools sell their playing fields for housing developments. Fair enough, independent schools can afford to teach pupils golf and rowing because they charge extra for the coaching. No doubt it is easier to take an interest in tennis when your school has well maintained courts. But state schools still have sports facilities and they have access to parks and municipal sports centres. Their playing fields have been sold because they weren't being used. Hand-wringing cries of "what can the kids do in the evenings and weekends now that the school playing field has been turned into a super-brothel?" presume they would otherwise be teeming with bronzed teenage athletes perfecting the Fosbury flop. It's complete nonsense.
So what is the immoral advantage if it isn't standards of teaching or sports grounds? I suspect it is the thing that caused that hard-left Labour MP Dianne Abbott to send her son to an independent school. It is that independent schools aim to encourage personal discipline and to get the best out of every pupil. It is more to do with character development than teaching quadratic equations. It is more to do with letting young people know they are responsible for what they do than with listing the welfare benefits they might be able to claim. It is more to do with opening their eyes to possibilities than with encouraging a sense of worthlessness. A well-rounded education to bring the best out of each pupil is an immoral advantage compared to being at a school with no discretion, a school constrained by box-ticking and form-filling to give the government data they can manipulate into a tale of unmitigated success when the real world knows the opposite to be true. The only reason it is an immoral advantage is that the way government controls the state schools is amoral.
While trying to match the private sector, our friends on the left want to abolish it. We hear various arguments in favour of abolition, the most frequently occurring is that private education and medicine allow the rich an immoral advantage over those unable to pay. Just to hear this argument gives me huge pleasure because it accepts that privately-funded schools and hospitals provide a better service than those controlled by the State. It also makes me wonder why they do not argue for all schools and hospitals to be administered and operated like the private ones so that everyone can wallow in immorally high levels of learning and physical wellbeing.
Of course it is unfair to make a direct and total comparison between independent schools and hospitals and those funded by taxes. I want to say a few things about schools today, hospitals can wait.
Generally speaking it is probably the case that a higher percentage of children attending independent schools have been raised to have good manners and a positive approach to learning. This makes time in the classroom much more productive for pupils. Although it could probably never be measured, let's assume this makes a difference of just 1% per year to what the average pupil achieves. Over the 11 years of compulsory schooling between ages 5 and 16, the total difference between the outcome for the same pupil entering a state school or an independent school amounts to just over 11.5%. Johnny Blob will score 100 if he attended a state school but 111.5 at an independent school. If the difference is 2% per year the total discrepancy after 11 years is almost 25%. These are massive figures in this context because they relate to how well a child is equipped for life by their school at the tender age of 16.
This discrepancy (whatever the true figure) is not the fault of the state schools, it is the consequence of the way the parents of their pupils have raised them and this should not be left out of account when considering how well or badly a state school is doing. It is not just in the world of computer climate models that garbage in = garbage out. I have no reason to believe that state schools do not try very hard to make up for a lack of parental discipline, the state schools I attended certainly did so. Nonetheless, the disruptive elements who can do so much harm to the prospects of their peers are predominantly in the state sector.
Independent schools also select many of their pupils by academic ability, a privilege denied to the vast majority of state schools these days. Some counties still have grammar schools and if they are anything like the one I attended they will be very fine institutions, but their numbers are few.
These two factors make me wonder how much better independent schools really are than state schools at the basic art of teaching stuff. If we remove the "mark-up" resulting from having generally brighter and better behaved pupils, we might well find that there is little difference. I can only speak anecdotally about the posh end of education (having attended a village primary school, the local grammar school and then non-Oxbridge universities) but those whose parents forked out the cost of a new car each year for over a decade tell me tales of some brilliant and some awful teachers with the majority being pretty average. Just as one would expect and just as I experienced in the state sector.
When the lefties bleat about the immoral advantages independent schools give their pupils they never identify the standard of teaching as one of those advantages. They often carp on about better sports facilities while state schools sell their playing fields for housing developments. Fair enough, independent schools can afford to teach pupils golf and rowing because they charge extra for the coaching. No doubt it is easier to take an interest in tennis when your school has well maintained courts. But state schools still have sports facilities and they have access to parks and municipal sports centres. Their playing fields have been sold because they weren't being used. Hand-wringing cries of "what can the kids do in the evenings and weekends now that the school playing field has been turned into a super-brothel?" presume they would otherwise be teeming with bronzed teenage athletes perfecting the Fosbury flop. It's complete nonsense.
So what is the immoral advantage if it isn't standards of teaching or sports grounds? I suspect it is the thing that caused that hard-left Labour MP Dianne Abbott to send her son to an independent school. It is that independent schools aim to encourage personal discipline and to get the best out of every pupil. It is more to do with character development than teaching quadratic equations. It is more to do with letting young people know they are responsible for what they do than with listing the welfare benefits they might be able to claim. It is more to do with opening their eyes to possibilities than with encouraging a sense of worthlessness. A well-rounded education to bring the best out of each pupil is an immoral advantage compared to being at a school with no discretion, a school constrained by box-ticking and form-filling to give the government data they can manipulate into a tale of unmitigated success when the real world knows the opposite to be true. The only reason it is an immoral advantage is that the way government controls the state schools is amoral.
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Their playing fields have been sold because they weren't being used. Hand-wringing cries of "what can the kids do in the evenings and weekends now that the school playing field has been turned into a super-brothel?" presume they would otherwise be teeming with bronzed teenage athletes perfecting the Fosbury flop. It's complete nonsense.
TFB, that is genius.
Apart from that, who cares quite why private schools are better? Scrap State education and give everybody vouchers and we'll find out whether it is possible for everybody, or at least the 90% of non-Underclass children, to have a better education. I am convinced that it is.
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