@naomi
//Hypognosis, I didn’t say you were disrespectful
Correct, you didn't. That was aimed at AOG, who'd responded to what I'd said, using that adjective. I bundled that onto my reply to you without clearly labelling that it was aimed at someone else. Seemes to happen on AB all the time but apologies for this instance.
//– I defended you against that accusation.
Thanks.
//Yes, £17,000 a year is a lot of money
I have had a salary not much above that, in the no-longer-recent past. (Dis)Colours my viepoint to a great extent.
//but most people who send their children to private school do not regard it as ‘disposable income’ – it’s a good chunk of what they see as their living expenses//
It's still an -option- the way I look at it. State schools are available.
Okay, so I'm 30 years out of touch with what schools are like and mine had the advantage of being staffed largely by the same teachers as when it was a grammar school, so I still got to Uni in the end.
//Many parents – mums and dads - work all the hours available to them in order to pay it, they often voluntarily forego life’s ‘luxuries’, //
Voluntarily, yes. Like I said, it's a life option. Nobody is holding a gun to their heads to make them do this.
//and it may surprise you to learn that in order to help the parents who are struggling to pay the fees many private schools organise sales of second-hand uniforms and equipment. //
Well done them!
//Private schools do offer a better start in life//
Confession!!
// – as do grammar schools //
I certainly had the benefit. Conversion to comprehensive is just an inconvenient detail which requires careful explanation in my CV which most employers would probably overlook.
// – and I don’t criticise anyone for doing the best they can for their children.//
Me neither but if they collectively stopped being so ludicrously competitive, sent their kids to state school like the rest of us and we let the provate schoold go out of business then we wouldn't end up with this two-tier society.
I'm talking nonsense of course. See that piece about South Korean kids doing 10-14 hour days, to make sure they make the grade? We're going to have to become like that, in order not to get overtaken on the world stage.
//That’s not entirely fair – and actually it smacks of sour grapes. //
The DM article was the one laying on with a trowel about how special he was. I merely restated that, in a somewhat exaggerated manner so that I could question how, if this was the case, he could be allowed (by friends and family) to wander off in a vulnerable state.
//The fact that this boy was a student at a private school doesn’t make him any more ‘precious’ than any other boy //
Quite so. This thread began by others questioning why the DM made such a story about this individual and asking would they have done the same about a kid from the comprehesive? I was just jumping on the bandwagon, somewhat late.
//- but you didn’t have it so no one else should, is that it?
Fair point. The argument in favour of equality inexorably heads towards the one-size-fits-all solution but sharing resources around equally (financially and in terms of teacher quality) dilutes the boost provided by the redistibuted high-quality staff from the private schools. Uniformity would be achieved but the level may only be 102%, 103% of current State schools' performance.
Catch me on any other day and I'll be arguing in favour of elitism. I also had to suffer the annoying kids at the back of the class who'd disrupt the lesson. Words like 'nerd' or 'geek' were not in use at the time and I was not a 'swot', didn't study academic stuff on my own time, so deeply resented being treated like one. That's the part of me which still insists that the brightest kids be hived off to somewhere where they're spared all that hassle or, at the very least, given special lessons to boost their social skills and build a skin thick enough to deal with the roughness of real life.