Education is a benefit to society, which benefits from a more educated workforce. A sector that does this well for 600k kids at no cost to the state is a huge plus.
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Call me a pie-in-the-sky dreamer, but I think the sector should be performing well for all kids, not just the 600k with the most affluent parents. Private education has an immense cost to the state: it siphons off teachers, resources, and parental energy that could strengthen the state system. And
aug 31, 2025, 9:09 am • 1 0 • view
most importantly, as I said, it entrenches the character of existing elite institutions and provides a barrier to social mobility. The idea that a less fair, less cohesive society where privilege buys advantages that should be based on merit is a good trade off for some “savings” on fees is mad.
aug 31, 2025, 9:11 am • 1 0 • view
‘Elite Institutions’!? You confuse the whole sector of 2600 diverse, mostly small local day schools with a tiny number of elite public boarding schools and hate them because of it. The dictionary definition of bigotry.
aug 31, 2025, 2:15 pm • 0 0 • view
Read again… I’m not referring to the schools themselves as uniformly elite, I’m talking about institutions of society (parliament, business, the judiciary, etc) which at the elite level are composed wildly disproportionately of people from a privately educated background.
aug 31, 2025, 2:22 pm • 1 0 • view
Still wrong. At best based the education landscape in the 70/80s not now and even then still from a limited number of elite boarding schools. There are some incredible state schools around which are only accessible through exams and buying an expensive house. They actually cost the state money.
aug 31, 2025, 3:38 pm • 0 0 • view
Sorry, what are you suggesting is “still wrong”? It’s an objective, empirical fact that Britain’s elite draws disproportionately from the privately educated. Data from 2019 (which a few years ago obviously but not quite the 70s or 80s): www.theguardian.com/society/2019...
aug 31, 2025, 3:50 pm • 0 0 • view
And when were the elite judiciary educated?
aug 31, 2025, 4:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Hahaha hope those goalposts aren’t too heavy! We are talking about a pattern, not isolated cases. Even if senior judges are relatively older, the broader pattern across politics, media, and civil service remains intact: private school backgrounds give an advantage. That’s why parents pay for them!
aug 31, 2025, 4:19 pm • 0 0 • view
Not really over state grammars. Maybe it’s selective schools or parents invested in their kids’ education. Oxbridge offer ratio of interviews to places insane for state and PS.
aug 31, 2025, 5:10 pm • 0 0 • view
State grammar schools also should not exist (and barely do), but I wonder if you have any data at all to back up the idea that private schools confer no greater advantage than grammar schools do? Or if you can offer any sort of justification for why kids with affluent parents should be advantages?
aug 31, 2025, 5:14 pm • 0 0 • view