Private School Funding

davet82

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/latest-news/quinn-reviews-cash-to-feepaying-schools-3252444.html

EDUCATION Minister Ruairi Quinn is considering cutbacks to the €100m subsidy given to fee-paying schools in the forthcoming Budget.

Should the state be paying the salaries of teachers in fee paying schools at all? If they are private schools should they not be solely privately funded?

or

By people part funding their childrens education they are infact saving the tax payer some of the cost in the long run?

RoyalMarine

Why should tax payers money pay salaries of teachers in private schools when the majority of tax payers children don't go to these schools?

I went to a private school. I am no better educated than my friends who went to public schools.

Private schools should pay teachers 100% of their wages.

say_who_now?

davet82 wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/education/latest-news/quinn-reviews-cash-to-feepaying-schools-3252444.html

EDUCATION Minister Ruairi Quinn is considering cutbacks to the €100m subsidy given to fee-paying schools in the forthcoming Budget.

Should the state be paying the salaries of teachers in fee paying schools at all? If they are private schools should they not be solely privately funded?

or

By people part funding their childrens education they are infact saving the tax payer some of the cost in the long run?

I had always assumed private fee paying schools funded themselves, I was surprised tbh when I heard that this morning that they were subsidised by the government when there's not even enough money in the coffers to fund public schools!

Has to be more to this surely?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

look why dont we just kill the rich and have done with it

mike65

If the contention is that Private Schools should have funding removed to save money can anyone demonstrate how that money will be saved, bearing in mind teachers need paying for regardless of the status of the school.

Micky Dolenz

You don't need to be rich to go to private school.However if they cut funding, you will need to be.

Zamboni

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

look why dont we just kill the rich and have done with it

Bit dramatic.
Private enterprise is private enterprise. If the business model has become overly dependent on state support and is not viable on an independant basis then blame the management not the tax payer.

ted1

look this is pure nonsense.

each student in the state should get x, this should go towards paying teachers etc.

now if people want to pay money to the school. the school then hires extra teachers to reduce class sizes and provide more learning support, then so be it.

That's how semi private school works. they get no more than a public school, if they didn't go to a private school, the same burden or even a bigger one will be on the state.

Jogathon

I think that the state should pay all teacher's wages, every child is entitled to an education from the state.

If the parents then choose to subsidise their child's education by sending them to a fee-paying school, with all the extra frills that entails then that is their right. If they have the money then they can spend it anyway that they want.

Stark

RoyalMarine wrote: »

Why should tax payers money pay salaries of teachers in private schools when the majority of tax payers children don't go to these schools?

I went to a private school. I am no better educated than my friends who went to public schools.

Private schools should pay teachers 100% of their wages.

The reason you're no better educated is because private schools can't poach the best teachers by offering higher wages like they do in places like the States.

ted1

RoyalMarine wrote: »

Private schools should pay teachers 100% of their wages.

Rubbish, each child should be enetitled to the same funding as others.

If they where to stop, i think there should be a complete opt out clause. that is, i should be able to choose to send my kids to private school and not pay taxes that go towards paying other kids parents.

Actually privatise everthing, I'd rather pay only for the services i use.

seamus

Two major issues with this:

- Remove teacher pay from private schools and the tuition fees will have to increase. Back-of-napkin figures, if a school has 60 teachers paid on average €50k + pensions & allowances, then the private school will need to raise at least an extra €400k per year to keep going. With 1,000 pupils, that'll be €400 extra per pupil. Minimum - it'll probably work out far more than that when other expenses (tax & admin) are taken into account.
That will force a big chunk of parents to put their kids into the public system, putting more pressure on it and inadvertently raising costs.

- Teachers will have freedom to pick and choose based on salary. The private schools will be able to offer greater incentives to better teachers - hoovering up all of the best teachers by offering them more money, leaving the poorer teachers in the public system. Parents will pay big money if a school has exceptionally good staff. Schools in poorer areas will invariably get worse as teachers chase better wages even in mid-level private schools.

Zamboni

seamus wrote: »

Two major issues with this:

- Remove teacher pay from private schools and the tuition fees will have to increase. Back-of-napkin figures, if a school has 60 teachers paid on average €50k + pensions & allowances, then the private school will need to raise at least an extra €400k per year to keep going. With 1,000 pupils, that'll be €400 extra per pupil. Minimum - it'll probably work out far more than that when other expenses (tax & admin) are taken into account.
That will force a big chunk of parents to put their kids into the public system, putting more pressure on it and inadvertently raising costs.

Is there any hard math showing that this would be the case?

griffdaddy

seamus wrote: »

Two major issues with this:

- Remove teacher pay from private schools and the tuition fees will have to increase. Back-of-napkin figures, if a school has 60 teachers paid on average €50k + pensions & allowances, then the private school will need to raise at least an extra €400k per year to keep going. With 1,000 pupils, that'll be €400 extra per pupil. Minimum - it'll probably work out far more than that when other expenses (tax & admin) are taken into account.
That will force a big chunk of parents to put their kids into the public system, putting more pressure on it and inadvertently raising costs.

- Teachers will have freedom to pick and choose based on salary. The private schools will be able to offer greater incentives to better teachers - hoovering up all of the best teachers by offering them more money, leaving the poorer teachers in the public system. Parents will pay big money if a school has exceptionally good staff. Schools in poorer areas will invariably get worse as teachers chase better wages even in mid-level private schools.

If people actually stopped and realised this before ranting the argument would be over before it started. Where do people think children would go to school if they didn't go to private schools?

TwoTokeTommy

davet82 wrote: »

By people part funding their childrens education they are infact saving the tax payer some of the cost in the long run?

Parents paying for "extras" saves the state nothing.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

look why dont we just kill the rich and have done with it

Ah, shur let's have a go! They're killing us with a two tier health system. And don't forget "being better off" increases your life expectancy.

Zamboni wrote: »

Bit dramatic.
Private enterprise is private enterprise. If the business model has become overly dependent on state support and is not viable on an independant basis then blame the management not the tax payer.

Yes!! It's not the role of the State to support every failed business venture.

Jogathon wrote: »

I think that the state should pay all teacher's wages, every child is entitled to an education from the state.

If the parents then choose to subsidise their child's education by sending them to a fee-paying school, with all the extra frills that entails then that is their right. If they have the money then they can spend it anyway that they want.

The key word above being choice. They can choose to send the kids to public school, or choose to opt out of the system and pay full whack.

You can have your choices and pay for it or else STFU.

Internet Hero

Parents of children in private schools pay alot of tax so they are entitlede to getting the money back as teachers wages. if they want to pay extra on top of that its up to them. why should there taxes not work for them too?

theholyghost

As someone who went to a really sh1t public school I've never had a problem with private schools.

The government provides the same amount per student regardless of what school they go to and then this is topped up by parents. This even happens in state schools just to a lesser degree. Parents still have to give the school an extra payment at the start of the year for extra costs under the umbrella of art, activities etc..

If capitation grants for priavte schools are abolished will the government channel that money into state schools so that free education is truly free? I doubt it.

Everyone will just be a little worse off.

ted1

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

Parents paying for "extras" saves the state nothing.



Ah, shur let's have a go! They're killing us with a two tier health system. And don't forget "being better off" increases your life expectancy.



Yes!! It's not the role of the State to support every failed business venture.



The key word above being choice. They can choose to send the kids to public school, or choose to opt out of the system and pay full whack.

You can have your choices and pay for it or else STFU.

Actually, a child in a private school does cost the state less. So your points are mute.

TwoTokeTommy

seamus wrote: »

Two major issues with this:

- Remove teacher pay from private schools and the tuition fees will have to increase. Back-of-napkin figures, if a school has 60 teachers paid on average €50k + pensions & allowances, then the private school will need to raise at least an extra €400k per year to keep going. With 1,000 pupils, that'll be €400 extra per pupil. Minimum - it'll probably work out far more than that when other expenses (tax & admin) are taken into account.
That will force a big chunk of parents to put their kids into the public system, putting more pressure on it and inadvertently raising costs.

- Teachers will have freedom to pick and choose based on salary. The private schools will be able to offer greater incentives to better teachers - hoovering up all of the best teachers by offering them more money, leaving the poorer teachers in the public system. Parents will pay big money if a school has exceptionally good staff. Schools in poorer areas will invariably get worse as teachers chase better wages even in mid-level private schools.

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

This is a significant cost to pay per pupil per year, it would be interesting to see how many parents would cough up for this.

You are correct there would be an increase cost to the state if private students turn public.. HOWEVER, you seem to be forgetting the savings to the State by ceasing payments to ALL teachers in private schools.

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.

Teachers wages could be regulated and capped if that was going to be an issue. Also, you're first point indicated that removing the subsidy would put pressure on costs at private schools. Unless the fees jump big time, they would have real problems offering the highest salaries.

*Note: I remember the pay system for teachers being very backward and needing changing itself.

TwoTokeTommy

Internet Hero wrote: »

Parents of children in private schools pay alot of tax so they are entitlede to getting the money back as teachers wages. if they want to pay extra on top of that its up to them. why should there taxes not work for them too?

Reason: They chose to OPT-OUT of the public system.

Stark

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

Reason: They chose to OPT-OUT of the public system.

In many cases because the public schools in their area gave preferential enrollment to Catholic children.

Internet Hero

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

Reason: They chose to OPT-OUT of the public system.

nonsense and very silly. your creating standards are rules that dont exist. they choose to go to private schools under the understanding that they can add to there tax payments with additional money in order to get a better service. they opt for private schools which are given added funding by parents on top of the public funding, never did they decide to abandon public funding by going to private, it is part of the deal.

TwoTokeTommy

ted1 wrote: »

Actually, a child in a private school does cost the state less. So your points are mute.

It could cost the State nothing.

TwoTokeTommy

Stark wrote: »

In many cases because the public schools in their area gave preferential enrollment to Catholic children.

Ok, but that's religious b/s which shouldn't be allowed continue anyway.

Micky Dolenz

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

You don't need to be rich to go to private school.However if they cut funding, you will need to be.

Boo-hoo to them. Why cant they just slum it in a Public school like the rest of us then? The country is broke so everyone has to make sacrifices.

Stark

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

It could cost the State nothing.

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.

ted1

TwoTokeTommy wrote: »

It could cost the State nothing.

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

Internet Hero

Deleted User wrote: »

Boo-hoo to them. Why cant they just slum it in a Public school like the rest of us then? The country is broke so everyone has to make sacrifices.

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

admiralofthefleet

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

You don't need to be rich to go to private school.However if they cut funding, you will need to be.

we considered sending our son to a private school but in the end we went for an educate together. the fees werent the issue but we realised there would be no difference in the education and we are doing everything in our power to sheild him from catholic influence

Boombastic

mike65 wrote: »

If the contention is that Private Schools should have funding removed to save money can anyone demonstrate how that money will be saved, bearing in mind teachers need paying for regardless of the status of the school.

Teachers paid by private schools should be paid what that school can afford to pay them.

TwoTokeTommy

Internet Hero wrote: »

nonsense and very silly. your creating standards are rules that dont exist. they choose to go to private schools under the understanding that they can add to there tax payments with additional money in order to get a better service. they opt for private schools which are given added funding by parents on top of the public funding, never did they decide to abandon public funding by going to private, it is part of the deal.

"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: )

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.

Zamboni

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