State or independent – it doesn’t matter…
I thought I should flag up the frankly bizarre conclusion to be drawn from a sequence of 3 Times articles I came across this morning. The first is here, where it is suggested that private schools start expanding class sizes to “keep fees down as the credit crisis bites”. In theory, I have no real problem with this, as long as it means letting more pupils in rather than cutting down the number of teachers – since the former gives more kids the opportunity to a ‘good’ education while the latter simply deprives the ones already there of educational resources. What I would stress, however, is that on a practical level, making a teacher deal with about 30 kids in a class as opposed to 20 (which are pretty ‘normal’ numbers from what I know of both educational sectors) is going to overstretch their physical capacity to teach, so the quality they’ll be able to provide will de facto diminish with every extra kid that joins the class. Diminishing returns, as economists would call it. The article suggests combatting that by having ‘teaching assistants’ hovering around to help the teacher out – again, fine in theory, but just think about the practical implications. What would the actual differences be between the teacher and the assistant? Would the assistant be paid as much as the ‘proper’ teachers? If so, how is this different to having 2 teachers in the room? In such a case, how would the practical aspect of teaching work – split the kids into groups for ease of management (in which case, why not split them into separate classes and have done with it)? Which of the two would the pupils be expected to focus on? If exclusively the teacher, then what is the point of the assistant? To help out, fine, but when and in what way (e.g. I’d find, and have found, trying to focus on two people explaining the same stuff to me at the same time both difficult and thoroughly distracting)? A lot of questions, no answers given as yet…
But all that aside, I want to highlight the fact that smaller classes is part of what makes the teaching at private schools different to that at state schools (ignoring things like fees and average teaching quality for the moment). Bear that one in mind if you would. Now turn to this article, which recommends that parents stuck for money as a result of the credit crunch withdraw their kids from ‘expensive’ private schools and stick them into ‘top-end’ state schools (comprehensive or grammar, no difference made here), with the notorious league tables as the barometer used to measure state schools’ prowess. The rationale? They cost less money, and produce the same results (or should do, if the Access schemes in the Russell Group of universities have been doing their jobs). Again, a sensible suggestion on the face of it, though I also stress that my experience of not just private but public schools offers unambiguous evidence that even they operate bursaries and scholarships to allow the poor but talented to profit from the empirically higher quality of teaching at little to no cost. Not a route for everyone, but something to be borne in mind.
Now finally take a look at this specimen here, another in the long list of articles picking out apparent evidence of quotas and class-bias in university admissions programmes. Quite apart from the wording, which makes it sound like a national conspiracy that only the likes of James Bond or Jason Bourne could solve, what struck me straightaway was the supposed news that universities are “secretly operating selection schemes that can discriminate against applicants from good state or independent schools”. Notice: state or independent schools. Hold on just a second! Thinking back through the narrative from the first article, private schools should make their teaching more like state schools to cut costs, people should send their kids to good state schools because they produce the same results as private ones at considerably less cost, and ultimately it doesn’t matter where you send your kids because if the place is anywhere near the top of the league tables your offspring won’t get into Oxbridge. Just great…
The end of the third article offers advice on ways to ‘jump’ the selection bias, such as switching to the state sector at 16 and hiring private tutors to prepare your kid specifically for Oxbridge. Now this might come as news to some people, but ‘hiring’ involves something called MONEY, which to be honest you would be just as well off spending on a private school while that sector still enjoys some advantage over the public one… As I’ve said so many times, it’s not in university tutors’ interests to pick out the kids from the poshest postcodes, but the innately intelligent ones with the best chance of bringing in top-level degree results. And thankfully for all of us, innate intelligence doesn’t usually depend on geography…
Another wonderful article Marius! One minor point that I would disagree with you on is the idea that state education with tuition is as expensive as private schooling. The average GCSE student would need weekly tuition in three or four subjects. If this is at £30 a week per subject. The total for an academic years tuition would come out at £4800. This level of tuition could easily gain your child the high grades and also ends up being less than private sector school fees.
Just a couple of points (as someone from a [underperforming] state comprehensive background) – class sizes of 30 plus (my GCSE top set maths class has 34 people in it in Y11) are not really unusual in state comps – bottom sets need to be smaller so teachers can a. keep control and b. help out those struggling most – often with dyslexia, autism, Aspergers, ADD, ADHD, etc. So top sets are enlarged as you’d expect the students set to get Bs and above not to misbehave, and to deal better with things like having to share desks and textbooks when there aren’t enough.
Secondly… even at a bad comprehensive, for GCSE, you shouldn’t need coaching to get As and A*s at GCSEs (with the possible exceptions of maths and *maybe* physics). A read through of the syllabus will ensure you know what you need to do to get good grades, and then intelligence/talent will make sure you achieve it. So if you need that much extra help to get good grades at GCSE… not totally convinced you deserve them.