A most uncharitable campaign

Tom

A couple of points: (1) This is class war, it is stupid. (2) Independent schools are not perfect, and it would do well for the media to remember this. (2) (a) The dreadful pre-U examination, for example, illustrates how market-based independent school ideology is. Thus, despite being told A Level is 'wholly inadequate', the qualification will offer just ONE extra grade of distinction. (3) Independent schools do not provide the highest academic standards, the remaining grammer schools do.

Alcuin

One wonders whether this government will be so vigilant in pursuing Islamic charities to show contributions to public benefit. How many guesses do you need? Cameron needs to come straight out with his response, and it should be to get government out of education, and introduce a voucher scheme. Just as Labour abolished the valuable assisted places scheme, the Tories should make clear that they will reverse Brown's class politics. Will Dave have the guts for such assertiveness?

David Lindsay

Tom's third point is well-made. Alcuin, the only people who agree with you on this already vote Tory, so what would be the point from Cameron's point of view? As a supporter of State action in the economy, I often note how many ostensible opponents of that position were educated at, and/or send their own children to, institutions that simply would not exist without gigantic public subsidies. So staff from fee-paying schools are to be drafted in to tell those from the state sector how to do their jobs? Why? Apparently on the automatic assumption that they know better, rather than just that they have never had to deal with ... well, pretty much anything at all, really.

bill

Whilst public schools are by no means perfect (and it almost goes without saying that the same applies to state schools), they provide an essential good to the public through education. An attack on them motivated by some atavistic desire for class war or otherwise will do the nation no good. People should be free to educate their children as they please and those going private pay twice. What the education system needs is a voucher system not a belated follow up to the attack on grammar schools.

Alan Stoddart

The obvious good that private schools do, other than providing good education, is that they take pupils out of the state education system but they do not take money out. The money that would have been used for those children now goes towards the education of less well off children who remain in the state system and the charitable status merely part compensates the parents who have to dig deep for an education that this government should be providing but fails miserably through every fault of its own. The Tory policy of vouchers is a nonsense because it does take money out of the state system and the supposed choice of school is clearly a mirage as no school has endless places for anyone wanting to send their children there. I find it incredible that any school teacher should think streaming is a bad idea. Mixing pupils of different abilities does not work merely disadvantaging both the able and the less able. Grammar schools are merely streaming by school rather than within a school. The teachers at grammars are not better than the ones at state schools, they just have pupils and parents who have expectations, the ability and the desire to succeed academically. Far from a 'stranglehold' on education the middleclasses 'embrace' it. To criticise them for this is astonishing and low politics. This Labour government is running this country into the ground, destroying the education system, destroying the political system and civil service, starving the legal systenm of funds, importing millions of foreigners for its own ideological and political reasons, breaking up the Union and monitoring our every move. Who can believe that the Soviet Union really lost the Cold War. Were Blair and his cohorts useful idiots.

Steve Lee, London

The government are going to attempt to claw back £100m pounds which will make private education even more expensive and elitist. The seven hundred and fifty thousand plus public school children are saving the government approximately £2.5 billion by not taking up state school places. On top of that the parents are paying taxes which fund state school places. Do the maths! The politics of envy, welcome to the moronic Left.

Monty

There could be a spectacular backlash if middle class parents and grandparents ever realise the answer has been in their hands all the time.
Set up their own co-operative schools, for their own children, using their own professional skills. Sign me up for Physics and Maths to A level, and English Language, and English Literature to IGCSE. I'll see you all at assembly on Monday morning.

Thomas Davis

And what will become of Hogwarts?

Richard Jenkins

I agree that this is a class driven vindictive campaign. But for those of us who support independent schools, perhaps a properly libertarian solution would have two elements: (1) accept that independent schools are basically businesses, and VAT should be charged on their fees; BUT (2) allow parents to set off school fees paid against tax.

Tom

To say that someone who sends their child to Eton 'pays twice' is a bit like saying a pensioner who drives a Rolls Royce 'pays twice' on account of concessionary public transport.

Paul

Meanwhile, here's a snapshot of all that's wrong with the hive mind of modern educationalists - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7192330.stm "It is important that the citizens of tomorrow understand the management of risk, appreciate diversity, are aware of environmental issues, promote sustainability and respect human rights and social inclusion. "If the aspiration of schools is to create pupils who are active and well-rounded citizens, there is no more relevant subject than geography." There it is - education as indoctrination and social engineering. This isn't just about the Charity Commission's barely disguised agenda of class warfare, loathesome though that is - it's about the need for a thorough "de-Stalinisation" of the whole education bureaucracy.

elixelx

The best used to be the "creme de la creme" skimmed off the top of a fragrant brew. Soon the best will be "pond scum" skimmed off the top of a stinking bouillabaisse

Leona

The government wants close private schools because they show to every parent in the country what a disgusting mess they've made of the state system. People will fight on and on and educate their children at home if they have to to spare them the horrors of this country's cesspit state school system. There are state schools in London with an almost permanent police presence in them but the media turn a blind eye as ever. We must focus on 'achievements' after all.

Hugh

The Charity Commission didn't decide to be circumspect in its wording; it had to be. While the assumption that schools are charitable was removed, the government avoided changing the law in relation to what constitutes a public benefit, because it didn't want to lose votes. The law on that still stands, and under it private schools are still charities anyway. That's why the schools went along with the change. If the Commission did decide a school wasn't charitable because of its fees it would be likely to lose the resulting court case.

Piers

All this is caused by the deficiencies of the state education system in this country compared to the private. The answer is surely to bring back academic selection in state schools, with selection taking place at age thirteen rather than eleven, the same as independent schools, where pupils take the common entrance exam. There should also be schools for the less able that combine academic qualifications with more practical education in areas such as domestic science, carpentry etc. Thirdly, there should be technical colleges to train those with no academic ability in skills that are suitable to them. You would then have a state sector that was more equal to the independent system in terms of quality, and so the class warriors would have less grounds for sneering at private schools for having more money (which I suspect is why they oppose these types of proposals.)

Steve

As Machiavelli would say, "You will observe, Oh Brown, that poorly educated people are habitually poor and vote Labour. QED.

George Steiner

I can see that excelence in education is an important topic for the British. But on the practical side you must ask yourselves, what would you do with a large number of well educated young people? Where would they work? What would they do? There is not much industry, manufacturing, high tecnology companies. Everybody can't work in the City, be a hairdresser work in the arts or be a jurnalist for that matter. You would have a big unemployable problem.