‘Toffism’ is here to stay, but private schools aren’t helping themselves

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/06/toffism-private-schools-charitable-status

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No British government is going to ban its citizens from paying for a private school. No more would it ban private houses, doctors, cars or old-age care. Life is unfair, even when unfairness starts at birth. When communists tried to eradicate parental advantage they found party officials starting their own schools.

Related: Private schools organisation chief tells critics: stop indulging in toffism

Those who cannot afford such benefits are reduced to howling abuse at those who can, blaming them for stealing the best teachers and winning the best places at university. Chris King of the private schools lobby, the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, today calls such abuse “toffism”. He says it is “clearly absurd to blame the sector that educates 7% of the population for the ills of the other 93%”. The good cannot be blamed for the bad.

King is right, but right these days is not enough. The widening gap between rich and poor, winners and losers, dominates every study of post-digital society. Theories of trickle down and upward drag do not work. How to make social institutions less unfair is a sensible objective of policy.

The failings of Britain’s secondary schools since their reorganisation on comprehensive lines in the 1960s have not been caused by private schools. They are the result of constant policy fidgets by central government as it seeks to eliminate localism and “nationalise” secondary education. A morass of academies, church schools, free schools and special schools has meant chaotic imbalances in resources and plunging teacher morale.

The ending of educational apartheid in the state sector at 11 may well have brought gains in social cohesion since the 1960s. What cannot be denied is that in reducing two tiers of state secondary education to one, comprehensives drove richer people into the private sector. The result has been a festering sore, one that is largely absent from American and continental schools. King can claim private schools prove their quality in the market place, but he cannot deny they are a divisive element in British society.

Localism can still alleviate divisions between schools. The charity status enjoyed by most private institutions implies charitable outcomes, not privileged ones. The better privates do open their facilities to neighbouring state schools, with joint teaching and shared sports and extracurricular activities. This must surely be the norm.

The word comprehensive can be redefined as a social as well as an educational objective. Councils may not run many schools, but they can coordinate them. We should expect those enjoying tax relief to extend their facilities and partnership to other schools in their area. It might not change society very much, but at least it might stop the howling.