Private School Funding

griffdaddy

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

It could cost the State nothing.

No, it couldn't, unless you were to rewrite the law. You can't force people who 'might have sent their kids to a private school' to send their kids to a private school and then pay full whack. You'd also have to rewrite article 42.2 of the constitution which provides that the state 'shall endeavour to supplement and give reasonable aid to private and corporate educational initiative.'

Boombastic

You don't send your children to private school to get a better education, you send them so they are mixing with the 'right' people and making good contacts for later in life. The curriculum is the same

Internet Hero

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

"Choose" not "chose" is what I meant to say as we're talking about the "how should things be", which is where rules that don't yet exist come into the realm of possibility.

In my opinion, the state should not be funding for the well off, a system that (supposedly) greatly helps in protecting their privileged position over the rest of society. I do accept that less people will afford private fees if the state halts paying for private school teachers. To those kids, "welcome back to society" (bbye high society :pac: )

the state should fund the tax payer. the parents of children in private schools are taxpayers. it is unjust to absurdity to not alow them to benefit from there paid taxs just because they are "well off" you are literaly punishing people for making money if you do that. just try to think of it without the jealousy you have and it will make sense

Internet Hero

Boombastic wrote: »

You don't send your children to private school to get a better education, you send them so they are mixing with the 'right' people and making good contacts for later in life. The curriculum is the same

rubbish and creepy socialist demonisation of private school. better student to teacher ratio and better facilities alow the curriculim to be tought better thus givin a beter education. i wanted to go to private for that reason.

Boombastic

Internet Hero wrote: »

the state should fund the tax payer. the parents of children in private schools are taxpayers. it is unjust to absurdity to not alow them to benefit from there paid taxs just because they are "well off" you are literaly punishing people for making money if you do that. just try to think of it without the jealousy you have and it will make sense

It's not punishing them for being well off. The state provides public schools. Every child is given the option of attending a public school. If the parents choose to send them to private school, it is the parents making that decision, the state is not punishing them for choosing a private school

@internet hero - same curriculum, same exams

kowloon

I'm not sure the government should be fully covering the wages of any teacher working in a school not open to the general public, but a cut in their contribution is only going to increase tuition and further widen the gap between public and private schools.

Perhaps a fair compromise would be the government covering a decent portion of the wages with the rest, not necessarily a large amount, being paid by the school in addition to any extra pay over the normal rates. I wonder how the reduced wages for new teachers would affect this.

I'd like to add that as a godless communist liberal type that I consider any school that is selective about who is allowed attend, barring catchment area, should be considered private for this purpose. No selecting the 'right type of people' based on class, religion or whatever.

Zamboni

Key problem with this debate is that the word school is used in both private and public contexts.
Let's call a spade a spade. A private school (in Ireland) is either a company or a religious body.
The state should fund only public schools. The state should not fund companies or religious bodies.
If a company or a religious order want to educate children then they should worry about their own bottom line.

TwoTokeTommy

Stark wrote: »

Could cost the State nothing if we took away funding from all schools. Let's take State funding away from all schools where parents pay a "voluntary contribution". That will save even more money.

Genius! Actually, let's just close down all schools. I got a pretty good education but look at the idiot I turned out. Complete waste of money. Burn em down!

ted1 wrote: »

it'll cost them more. the schools will close and there''ll be an influx of people to public schools.

They will all close? Really? Doubt it.

Internet Hero

Internet Hero wrote: »

so your just gonna go with not making any point then? cool

Ah I dunno really, surely the vast majority of people in private schools are from middle to high earners families. I dont mean to stereotype and i realise there are exceptional cases but is it private education really if they are so reliant on govt funding?

I mean could a third level institute not make the same argument if the Govt scrapped or made cuts to the grant system?

seamus

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

You missed a decimal point in your calculations (which are good rough estimates). Cost to school would be approx. €4,000 per pupil

€400k ÷ 1000 = €400.

So, if some pupils move to public, so what? The State was already paying for all their teachers under the old system. Unless all private students turned public (which would never happen, a lot of millionaires still in Ireland) savings exist.

You're forgetting about capitation. Every child who occupies a seat in a public school bears a cost the state outside of the cost of their teacher. This is all the little things like materials, light & heat, etc etc etc.

I don't know how much this costs per student, but it'll be non-trivial.
Be interesting to know exactly where this €100m is going. That's 1.8m per school, assuming €50k average, is 36 teachers per school, probably around 600 pupils on average, 33,000 pupils in total. If 10% of these had to drop out into the public system, that's an extra 3,300 pupils, about 200 more teachers required in the public system. €10m straight out.
How much does each child cost? And what if half of currently private students had to jump ship into the public system? Could it cope?

It's far from a simple calculation. Part of the benefit we're getting from our €100m is that aside from the cost of the teachers, there are 30-odd thousand pupils that the state doesn't have to provide facilities for.

theholyghost

Internet Hero wrote: »

rubbish and creepy socialist demonisation of private school. better student to teacher ratio and better facilities alow the curriculim to be tought better thus givin a beter education. i wanted to go to private for that reason.

+1 It is hard to have a serious discussion about these issues when it is reduced to this sort of classist nonsense.

Internet Hero

Boombastic wrote: »

It's not punishing them for being well off. The state provides public schools. Every child is given the option of attending a public school. If the parents choose to send them to private school, it is the parents making that decision, the state is not punishing them for choosing a private school

@internet hero - same curriculum, same exams

you can teach the same curriculim in a better environment for learning with better teachers which is wat parents want from private schools. those things provide beter education, you realy going to pretend thats not the case? it doesnt have to be diferent subject matter to be a better education, same stuff put across to the kids more efectively is a better education.

and they are paying taxes so they are entitled to having ther childrens education paid for under the constitution, if they want to supplement it that is there choise but to take away their public funding is unjust. stop beings o jealous it is so creepy

Rasheed

Internet Hero wrote: »

the state should fund the tax payer. the parents of children in private schools are taxpayers. it is unjust to absurdity to not alow them to benefit from there paid taxs just because they are "well off" you are literaly punishing people for making money if you do that. just try to think of it without the jealousy you have and it will make sense

So if I go to a private hospital instead of a public one, should I somehow feel I'm being 'punished' because my taxes have been spent in the public hospital?

I don't get this mentality that if I pay tax I should reap the benefits, even if I have made my decision to go private.

TwoTokeTommy

griffdaddy wrote: »

No, it couldn't, unless you were to rewrite the law. You can't force people who 'might have sent their kids to a private school' to send their kids to a private school and then pay full whack. You'd also have to rewrite article 42.2 of the constitution which provides that the state 'shall endeavour to supplement and give reasonable aid to private and corporate educational initiative.'

Choice. Choose private and pay, nobody is forcing anyone to send their kids to private school.

Yes, change the law. Sound good to me, i'm sure they're will be endless middle class moan against it though.

ted1

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

In my opinion, the state should not be funding for the well off, a system that (supposedly) greatly helps in protecting their privileged position over the rest of society. I do accept that less people will afford private fees if the state halts paying for private school teachers. To those kids, "welcome back to society" (bbye high society :pac: )

so basically it's down to begrudgery.....

the parent of alot of the kids in private school are in fact funding the education of there own kids and those in publice schools who's parents don't work or on low income and contribute little to the economy.

Sierra Oscar

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

It could cost the State nothing.

Or it could cost the state a hell of a lot more if numbers attending private schools drop off.

Internet Hero

Rasheed wrote: »

So if I go to a private hospital instead of a public one, should I somehow feel I'm being 'punished' because my taxes have been spent in the public hospital?

I don't get this mentality that if I pay tax I should reap the benefits, even if I have made my decision to go private.

because private is a word used to describe publicly funded plus fees. it obfuscates the question to pretend it means literaly private in the dictionary definition sense of the word. thus parents go there on the understand that they will get there tax rewards in the public funding there children are due, plus they add to it with there fees to try and get a better service. unjust to suddenly say oh you dont get your state funding because you are supplementing it with your own fees. seriously it is just jealous and a lack of objectivity that would make you think otherwise. its nonsense. you can hate the well off or be jealous but they are due there public funding like anyone else. so gross that people want to deny them that cos of there creepy socialisty jealous rubbish

seamus

More back-of-napkin figures here;

The Dept of Educations budget for 2012 was €8.2bn

According to the last census, there were just over 1m students in the country. Total cost per head = €8,200 per year.

So the cost of the 30,000 students in private education per year is about €240m, but the state is getting away with paying €100m.

Granted, the education budget covers a lot more stuff then pure students costs, but there's a big gap in those figures. Even if the actual cost is half the above, we're still getting a good deal on €100m.

TwoTokeTommy

Internet Hero wrote: »

the state should fund the tax payer. the parents of children in private schools are taxpayers. it is unjust to absurdity to not alow them to benefit from there paid taxs just because they are "well off" you are literaly punishing people for making money if you do that. just try to think of it without the jealousy you have and it will make sense

CHOICES CHOICES CHOICES!!!

I'm not forcing little Fintan to go mix with the sons of Taoisigh, bankers and barristers.

We're all taxpayers btw mate.

coffee_cake

Zamboni wrote: »

Key problem with this debate is that the word school is used in both private and public contexts.
Let's call a spade a spade. A private school (in Ireland) is either a company or a religious body.
The state should fund only public schools. The state should not fund companies or religious bodies.
If a company or a religious order want to educate children then they should worry about their own bottom line.

Unfortunately nearly all the public ones are also religious orders

Internet Hero

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

the sons of Taoisigh, bankers and barristers.

so i guess can we just discount every this guy says from here on now? hes clearly got no idea what the parents and children who go to privates schools are really like and has bought into jealosy based socialist creep show ideas. my neighbour went to private, his parents were less well off than mine but the sacrificed to get him there because they honestly believed it was a better service for there childs education, something they deemed to be important. from what ive heard and seen from the guy they were right on that. your opinion here is skewed by jealous and childish emotions. for your point to make any sense you have to shed your demonised rubbish view of what private schools are acutally like and try some objectivity, possibly for the first time in your life. such rubbish on this site sometimes.

Rasheed

Internet Hero wrote: »

because private is a word used to describe publicly funded plus fees. it obfuscates the question to pretend it means literaly private in the dictionary definition sense of the word. thus parents go there on the understand that they will get there tax rewards in the public funding there children are due, plus they add to it with there fees to try and get a better service. unjust to suddenly say oh you dont get your state funding because you are supplementing it with your own fees. seriously it is just jealous and a lack of objectivity that would make you think otherwise. its nonsense. you can hate the well off or be jealous but they are due there public funding like anyone else. so gross that people want to deny them that cos of there creepy socialisty jealous rubbish

I honesty don't think it has anything to do with jealously.

I'm not begrudging someone who has more money and wants their child to go to private school. It's their choice but I honestly don't think that the state needs to shoulder some of the burden.

ted1

Rasheed wrote: »

I honesty don't think it has anything to do with jealously.

I'm not begrudging someone who has more money and wants their child to go to private school. It's their choice but I honestly don't think that the state needs to shoulder some of the burden.

but the burden on the state is actually lessened....

it will cost the state more if the pupils were to go to a Public School. that is a fact.

Boombastic

People who are worried about the government cutting funding for private schools can't afford to send their children to private schools

savvyav

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought that in the case of private schools, the government pays for the number of teachers that the school is entitled to, and the school pays the salary of any 'extra' teachers that the DOE doesn't deem necessary? So if these private schools close down/turn public, there could be yet more job losses?

I personally don't see what the problem is with private schools. Yes, its the same curriculum but usually there's a greater variety of subjects on offer. Having been to a private school and taught in public and private schools, I can tell you that there's good and bad teachers in both, same as there's motivated and disinterested students in both. A lot of students in private schools have parents who are making huge sacrifices to pay fees because they want to give their child what they think is a better start in life. Surely having a parent who interested and involved in your education is a good thing?

Rasheed

ted1 wrote: »

but the burden on the state is actually lessened....

it will cost the state more if the pupils were to go to a Public School. that is a fact.

But they will have that 100 million they would have spent on the private schooling system to put back into public.

TwoTokeTommy

seamus wrote: »

€400k ÷ 1000 = €400.

You're forgetting about capitation. Every child who occupies a seat in a public school bears a cost the state outside of the cost of their teacher. This is all the little things like materials, light & heat, etc etc etc.

I don't know how much this costs per student, but it'll be non-trivial.
Be interesting to know exactly where this €100m is going. That's 1.8m per school, assuming €50 average, is 36 teachers per school, probably around 600 pupils on average, 33,000 pupils in total. If 10% of these had to drop out into the public system, that's an extra 3,300 pupils, about 200 more teachers required in the public system. €10m straight out.
How much does each child cost? And what if half of currently private students had to jump ship into the public system? Could it cope?

It's far from a simple calculation. Part of the benefit we're getting from our €100m is that aside from the cost of the teachers, there are 30-odd thousand pupils that the state doesn't have to provide facilities for.

Sorry to be pedantic over the decimal point but you gotta go back one calc as that's where you missed a 0!

60 teachers * €50k + pens & allow's = €3,000,000 + p&a => €4 million wage bill

divide by 1,000 pupils

4,000,000 / 1,000 = €4,000 per pupil :pac:

---

Anyway the rest of figures I can agree with. There is not much (€) cost difference either way.

Short term I accept there would be issues with a large number of students moving over. Long term I think it would be better to go one-tier and focus on improving the curriculum, dumping rote learning and introducing critical thinking (& bring in philosophy at an early age)

griffdaddy

Rasheed wrote: »

But they will have that 100 million they would have spent on the private schooling system to put back into public.

I really don't think you're getting the point that children from private schools have to be educated either privately or publicly. That 100 million will go straight into public schools to pay for children anyway. The state isn't paying for the infrastructure or anything not related to teachers in private schools. If there were no private schools, all the children who currently attend them would have to be taught in public schools and the state would have to fund everything else on top of teacher's wages. Private schools are saving the state money by subsidising everything except teacher's wages.

TwoTokeTommy

savvyav wrote: »

Having been to a private school and taught in public and private schools, I can tell you that there's good and bad teachers in both, same as there's motivated and disinterested students in both.

A lot of students in private schools have parents who are making huge sacrifices to pay fees because they want to give their child what they think is a better start in life. Surely having a parent who interested and involved in your education is a good thing?

Wouldn't it be worth telling that parent making huge sacrifices that they're doing so unnecessarily.

End of the day, they are choosing this.

Zamboni

bluewolf wrote: »

Unfortunately nearly all the public ones are also religious orders

Unfortunately indeed.

Serious gap in the market for a private non denominational school.

I'd pay.