educationpolicy

They no longer have a stranglehold on Oxbridge and would lose tax breaks under Labour. So what is elite education really selling?

At the Labour Party conference in Liverpool in October, the Independent Schools Council hosted a forlorn drinks reception: not one of the more than 40 MPs showed up. ‘We are not the enemy,’ one private school headmaster complained to a sympathetic Daily Mail. But if Labour does win the next general election, it has committed to removing tax breaks on business rates and 20% VAT on private school fees – raising £1.6bn to be invested in state schools. On top of this, Starmer’s cabinet (as it stands) would be the most state-educated in history – with only 13% having attended private school (against Rishi Sunak’s 63%). Can elite education survive – and cling on to its charitable status?

In this week’s audio long read – the last in this series – the New Statesman’s features editor Melissa Denes attends three school open days to understand how these winds of change might affect them. She also follows the money, calculating that – allowing for tax breaks - the average taxpayer subsidises an Eton schoolboy at a far higher rate than a state school one. As the gaps in spending between the two sectors grow, and society strives to become more fair, will an expensive education evolve into a luxury service rather than a charitable concern?

Written and read by Melissa Denes.

This article originally appeared in the 10-16 November edition of the New Statesman; you can read the text version here.

If you enjoyed listening to this article, you might also enjoy The decline of the British university by Adrian Pabst.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First Person is the newest show from New York Times Opinion. Each week, host Lulu Garcia-Navarro shares the stories of people living through the headlines. In this episode, Lulu asks: Are parents’ rights truly rights for all parents, no matter their politics?

Parental rights. It’s a term that burst into the public consciousness in recent years. This year alone, 82 bills have been introduced in 26 states under the banner of parental rights. On issues such as masking, vaccine mandates, critical race theory and book bans, parents are showing up at school board meetings to demand a greater say in their children’s education and lives. And it has coalesced into a powerful political force on the right.

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For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

The Christian home-school origins of the movement shaking up schools across America.

Today on the Matt Walsh Show, as we head into another school year, with our kids subjected to mask mandates on top of the usual leftist indoctrination, we need to ask one question: is it possible to save the school system, or is it time to simply abandon it? Also, CNN starts firing employees who don’t get the vaccine. A Gallup poll finds that no Hispanic person actually wants to be called Latinx. A journalist fires a so-called “assault rifle” for the first time, and his reaction is hilarious. The medal winning women’s olympic weightlifters are asked about the male who competed against them, and their response tells you everything you need to know. And in our daily cancellation, we’ll have the story of a Hollywood actress who says she is expressing her love for her husband by divorcing him.

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