Same for health care. If the rich had no other option but to depend on the public system, they'd be more likely to ensure it's properly funded.

Well, there are edge cases for private schools that would not make sense being solved by public schools. I moved a lot in my life (still do), and having access to schools in one of my children 's main language is an important thing for them. Those schools are still following local regulations though

The headline is whack, the article talks about the private schools.

Hmm. What's a better, non-misleading title? Or is the article BS in general? I'll delete this post if it's false.

Private schools grant an "out" for the wealthy (and by extension, powerful). If they can pay for better results, they're actively incentivised to lobby to defund public schools. If the private option doesn't exist, they're incentivised to lobby to improve public schools (the ones with kids, in any case).

If there is one thing that my experience living in the UK (having lived in other countries of Northern and Southern Europe) has taught me is that private education as well as non-meritocratic access to higher education are a key component in suppressing social mobility and "keeping people in their place" across generations: in that country the rich and high middle class have this well established path for their children through very expensive private schools (curiously know over there as "public schools", in the same sense of "public" as "anybody can spend a night in the Ritz if they have the £400 to pay for it") and then an "interview" selection process for Oxford and Cambridge where selection criteria are arbitrary such as for example "having attended the right school" (as an aquaintance of mine was told he hadn't, as reason to refuse his application) so that people who popped out of the right vagina and were sent to the "right" (£30k a year+) "public" schools are guaranteed to get in and come out of the other side with a diploma from an "elite" (not quite when it comes to pupils, but definitelly can and do hire some of the best researchers and lecturers) university.

By the way this all continues into their career, since "public" school educated types leverage the connections acquired there (and mommy and daddy's contacts) to literally step into highly paid sinecures purelly on cronyism.

In the UK Education is very much part of a red carpet for life if you were born in the "upper" classes.

My impression there was eventually that, had I been born in the UK to the kind of poor working class parents I was born to, instead of having gone into Physics at Uni thanks to my very high grades at high school and 98% score at the entrance exam (though I ended up switching to and graduating as an EE) and having a successful career across various countries of Europe in Engineering, I would've at best been a car mechanic because the education system in the UK is not at all meritocratic and is designed first and foremost to preserve class membership through the generations.

All this to say that Britain is a perfect example of a very well establish use of private education to maintain the lowest level of social mobility in all of Europe.

PS: Oh, and don't get me started on how "public" schools are "charities" (kid you not!) and thus pay no taxes. It's the very definition of "adding insult to injury" or as they would say over there "really taking the piss out of everybody else".

Private schools are a privilege for the upper class and a symptom of the unjust social inequality in capitalism.

Same issue with private health insurance in the US vs. universal healthcare in most other developed countries.

Your family is not eccentric. It's exceptional. There is a big difference. Unfortunately people are afraid of that,that seems different to what they are accustomed. When they cannot do something the other can, they ridicule it. Being bullied feels like shit. Be there for your daughter and help her steam out all the feelings she has. Help her make alliances with other kids in the school. let her choose to do sports or art she likes. teachers may take her side, but don't imagine that they'll do something, no mater how much you complain. I hope my response has some meaning for you

I'm sorry you experienced that, but to be honest it's entirely circumstancial. There are a lot of teachers in certain districts who normalize teasing students.

When you don't allow rich people with the most resources to create special areas for their precious babies to get ahead, they suddenly care about funding public education ... from which the rest of that stuff you mentioned flows.

People need to realize that if the rich are boarding a different ship than you, they're actively sinking yours for profit.

No country is safe from the “we shouldn’t educate children unless it’s profitable” and “women only exist to have said children” situation, unfortunately. You would hope that examples like this would push forward a universal agenda of better public schooling anywhere, but instead the agenda coming off it from the rich is generally “oh no, we don’t want everyone to be well educated, just my children, who will specifically act like me as they age and increase the gap”

Force rich people to use the bus and suddenly the buses are going to get better.