On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 12:28:09 +0000, Andy Hall
wrote:

On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 12:02:00 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
It's far from misguided to send a child to a private school. The
results in terms of educational and other outcome are plain to see;

Most of the benefits are because of inappropriate fast-tracking of ex-public
school products - and this is certainly not in the public interest.

Public schools are but a small part of the private education sector.

I was talking about the individual and the educational benefits.
Unless you have actually experienced use of both sectors personally,
it is difficult to appreciate those.

Other
benefits come from the freedom available to private schools to exclude pupils
and have other sanctions not available in the public sector.

All schools should have the ability to exclude pupils under certain
circumstances. This is how things work in adult life.

Only then do the benefits of small classes and better equipment step in.

The benefits of small classes are apparent from the outset in terms of
the attention that each pupil gets and the accelerated speed of
learning. Again, unless you have been involved in and seen the
results personally, it is not easy to appreciate the benefits.

If private schools do offer such benefits then shouldn't these be open
to all children and not just to those with wealthy enough parents?

Mark.