# Are private schools better than public schools?



## gianni (2 Mar 2021)

SBarrett said:


> And don't forget to criticise the wealthy and how much more above the average industrial wage they earn. But never mention how they got to that position, the years of study they did to get their qualifications, the risks they took to get their business off the ground and the amount of people they employ or all those additional hours they put in to be a success.



Often the wealthy benefitted from private schooling, family inheritance, favourable tax breaks. The risks they take are no greater than those that someone with reduced safety nets take.


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## Purple (2 Mar 2021)

gianni said:


> Often the wealthy benefitted from private schooling, family inheritance, favourable tax breaks. The risks they take are no greater than those that someone with reduced safety nets take.


Private schools? Really?
The State spend about €6000-€7000 a year putting a child through Secondary School. The financial differential between private and public schools is very much overstated. I'd suggest that there is a bigger difference between a public school in Blackrock and a public school in Darndale than there is between the private and public school in Blackrock. 

There isn't much inherited wealth in this country, but that will change in the future.
There are very few tax breaks for business owners in this country. 

Bottom line; most rich people in this country are rich because they earned it. They also pay most of the income tax. So be nice to them.


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## noproblem (2 Mar 2021)

> Purple.





> I'd suggest that there is a bigger difference between a public school in Blackrock and a public school in Darndale than there is between the private and public school in Blackrock.


I would differ slightly and suggest the bigger difference might be in the students going to those schools and not the schools.


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## gianni (2 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> Private schools? Really?
> The State spend about €6000-€7000 a year putting a child through Secondary School. The financial differential between private and public schools is very much overstated. I'd suggest that there is a bigger difference between a public school in Blackrock and a public school in Darndale than there is between the private and public school in Blackrock.
> 
> There isn't much inherited wealth in this country, but that will change in the future.
> ...



If the difference between the public and private school in Blackrock was so narrow, why would anyone spend €7,000 extra per year to place their child in the private school?

I think most rich people overestimate the influence their specific talents and disregard the advantages afforded to them.


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## Purple (3 Mar 2021)

gianni said:


> If the difference between the public and private school in Blackrock was so narrow, why would anyone spend €7,000 extra per year to place their child in the private school?


I don't think most private schools cost €7000 a year, more like 4 or 5k. People send their kids to schools for lots of reasons, because their friends are going there, because they went there, because it's the local school, because it has a better reputation, because they think their child will get a better education or because they are snobs or any mix of the above. There is no evidence that private schools provide better educational outcomes than public schools in the same demographic catchment area. 


gianni said:


> I think most rich people overestimate the influence their specific talents and disregard the advantages afforded to them.


I think you might want to take that chip off your shoulder.


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## arbitron (3 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> There isn't much inherited wealth in this country, but that will change in the future.



Where can we find the numbers for this?


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## NoRegretsCoyote (3 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> People send their kids to schools for lots of reasons, because their friends are going there, because they went there, because it's the local school, because it has a better reputation, because they think their child will get a better education or because they are snobs or any mix of the above.


I never really realised the following before I became a parent.

But when you have kids you find you spend a lot of time socialising with your kids' friends' parents.

So I sometimes think fee-paying schools are more an opportunity for the parents to hang out with each other than for the kids. All of the stuff that fee-paying schools do more of (performances, fields sports, extra-curricular stuff) is in many ways a vehicle for the parents to socialise.


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## Purple (3 Mar 2021)

arbitron said:


> Where can we find the numbers for this?


Over 90% of inheritance tax received comes from residential property. In other words inheriting a share of the parents house.
The top 10% of earners own 20% of the total value of residential property.

There is a far higher level of income inequality than net wealth inequality.  Because we have a very "progressive" income tax system we end up with a much more even net income distribution after welfare payments etc, the "social transfer".
That's all well and good now but as the people who bought their houses before the 90's property boom start polling their clogs and passing on their wealth to their children the levels of net income inequality will increase. We need to start taxing wealth more and taxing income less.

A few sources here and here and here.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (3 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> Over 90% of inheritance tax received comes from residential property. In other words inheriting a share of the parents house.



What is the source for this? It is not implausible, but the only think I can find is this.



Purple said:


> There is a far higher level of income inequality than net wealth inequality.



This is just wrong and you should correct it. The Gini coefficient for net wealth is 0.67, the Gini coefficient for income is 0.30.


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## Purple (3 Mar 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> This is just wrong and you should correct it. The Gini coefficient for net wealth is 0.67, the Gini coefficient for income is 0.30.


That's net income inequality, after social transfer.
In your link they compare gross household income to net wealth; apples and oranges.
Should  we continue to treat the symptoms of inequality (taxing the bejesus out of people's income) or should be treat the root causes (educational outcomes, infrastructure, addiction and social attitude)?


NoRegretsCoyote said:


> What is the source for this? It is not implausible, but the only think I can find is this.


I've edited my post to add sources.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (3 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> That's net income inequality, after social transfer.


Pre tax- and transfer-income inequality is about . So below wealth inequality. Still wrong. 



Purple said:


> I've edited my post to add sources.


I still can't see support for your claim that 90% of inheritance tax comes from property.


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## Purple (3 Mar 2021)

@NoRegretsCoyote, gross income is also a stupid measure to use for anything. If I earn €50k a year and own my own home and my next door neighbour earns €100k a year but is paying a €300k mortgage I have a far higher disposable income.
What's coming down the road is lots of people inheriting relatively large amounts of wealth due to property price inflation. 
At the same time we have inherited tenancies in council houses. The children of that cohort know that if they work hard and try to buy their own home they will be at a massive disadvantage because they won't inherit wealth and half of their marginal earned income will be taken in taxes. Why would they bother?

We couldn't stratify our society into intergenerational haves and have-nots more if we tried.


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## Purple (3 Mar 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> Pre tax- and transfer-income inequality is about . So below wealth inequality. Still wrong.


But half as unequal as you first suggested. 
The distribution of net wealth by age isn't taken into account by the gini coefficient and net household wealth is under €180k or about 3 years average household income. In other words income has a far higher impact on inequality than wealth. 
My point is that this will change over time and will have a specific and significant impact on who owns their own home and who is trapped in social housing.  


NoRegretsCoyote said:


> I still can't see support for your claim that 90% of inheritance tax comes from property.


Read the IT article I linked.


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## Mocame (3 Mar 2021)

Is someone who worked for 40 years to secure and then pay off a mortgage so they could live in that house mortgage free during retirement really wealthy?

My own parents are in this position - but they are scraping by on one state pension and one modest occupational pension and live a modest lifestyle.  Yet according to most measures of wealth they are wealthy.


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## Purple (3 Mar 2021)

Mocame said:


> Is someone who worked for 40 years to secure and then pay off a mortgage so they could live in that house mortgage free during retirement really wealthy?
> 
> My own parents are in this position - but they are scraping by on one state pension and one modest occupational pension and live a modest lifestyle.  Yet according to most measures of wealth they are wealthy.


When thy die and their children inherit the proceeds of their house then the children will be wealthy.
If your parents don't own a house and won't leave you money it makes it hard for you to buy a house/pay off a mortgage and leave more cash for your children.
I bought my first home in 1997, three years after qualifying as a Tradesman, because I thought that property prices would go up after 1998 when the ECB was established and exchange rates were frozen and interest rates (which were much lower in Europe) were set by that ECB. It was an apartment in Dublin City Centre. It cost £58,000 which was three times my income. Since then the rate of asset price inflation has far outpaced wage inflation. When the people who bought those assets cheap die their children will get a inheritance significantly bigger than their parents would have got relative to income.


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## Mocame (3 Mar 2021)

I don't consider my parents wealthy and I raised the point because many analyses of wealth inequality between age groups are overly simplistic I think.  Not that this type of inequality doesn't exist I want to stress, but it its scale and nature is not understood. In my own parent's generation any advantages they gained in the housing market counterbalanced by fact they left school prior to the availability of free second level education.  

Like many people of my generation I come from a large family and by the time the family home is divided among us all the proceeds will be modest but I acknowledge unearned.

I agree Purple that inherited wealth will be more significant going forward than it was in the past, because asset price growth has outpaced wages but also because small families are more common now so inheritances will be larger and it is more and more difficult to buy a house without parental help.


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## Thirsty (3 Mar 2021)

Possible answers to question posed:

1. Yes
2. No
3. It depends


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## Purple (3 Mar 2021)

Mocame said:


> I agree Purple that inherited wealth will be more significant going forward than it was in the past, because asset price growth has outpaced wages* but also because small families are more common now so inheritances will be larger and it is more and more difficult to buy a house without parental help*


Yes, very important point.
We have an aging population and a reducing birth rate so our population should stabilise or decline over the next few decades, assuming low net immigration. That will concentrate more wealth among those who inherit while wealth becomes proportionately larger in relation to income.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (3 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> Read the IT article I linked.


I did. It simply says that >90% of CAT comes from inheritances, it doesn't say what the composition of those inheritances is.

Your claim:



Purple said:


> Over 90% of inheritance tax received comes from residential property


Still unsubstantiated.


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## Purple (3 Mar 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> I did. It simply says that >90% of CAT comes from inheritances, it doesn't say what the composition of those inheritances is.
> 
> Your claim:
> 
> ...


I can't find the link I got the data from so I withdraw it. Have you any interest in posting on the substance of the topic at hand or are you just intent on nit-picking?


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## mtk (3 Mar 2021)

In south dublin most secondary schools for girls are fee paying .
Hence the peer pressure to go to fee paying schools among the kids.
Fees plus extras 7k approx.  for day pupils at more expensive end  (mount anville, rathdown, killiney ., alexander), the "cheaper" ones are around 4k ( the rest).In the overall scheme of things not much of a price difference imho .
Both price categories are a real bargain relative to the UK "public" schools by a  multiple.


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## Purple (3 Mar 2021)

mtk said:


> In south dublin most secondary schools for girls are fee paying .


I didn't know that. I'm surprised.


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## DublinHead54 (3 Mar 2021)

Whilst the education quality and syllabus may not differ, there is an aspect of 'opportunity network costs'. Assuming that in a fee-paying school the parents are in high earning professions for the most part and those connections the child builds may bear fruition later in life. 

That is my view, I don't think whether it is private/public detracts from the need to be hardworking and have a supportive family environment. 

I have a bigger gripe with Universities which I think treat our children as cash-cows and do a poor job at educating.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (3 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> Have you any interest in posting on the substance of the topic at hand


Of course.


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## Steven Barrett (3 Mar 2021)

mtk said:


> In south dublin most secondary schools for girls are fee paying .
> Hence the peer pressure to go to fee paying schools among the kids.
> Fees plus extras 7k approx.  for day pupils at more expensive end  (mount anville, rathdown, killiney ., alexander), the "cheaper" ones are around 4k ( the rest).In the overall scheme of things not much of a price difference imho .
> Both price categories are a real bargain relative to the UK "public" schools by a  multiple.


There is a massive demand for the free girls schools. Waiting list of over 1,000 for Muckross for my daughters year (she's in 4th class). We didn't put her name down until she was in 2nd class so assume we've missed the boat (although I hear the system has changed), so she is going to a private school. It is a lot smaller which will suit her better. It's relatively new so all the facilities are very modern and the building is very fresh with lots of natural light. 

But I find people get very entrenched in their argument over which is better. A child won't automatically become a genius for going to a private school. The facilities and subjects may suit a child, the smaller numbers may work for the child or a child may flourish in a public school. How a child will do is more down to their upbringing and their home environment.


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## Purple (4 Mar 2021)

Dublinbay12 said:


> Whilst the education quality and syllabus may not differ, there is an aspect of 'opportunity network costs'. Assuming that in a fee-paying school the parents are in high earning professions for the most part and those connections the child builds may bear fruition later in life.


I think the "Old Boys network" may be overstated. That said I didn't go to a private school. 


Dublinbay12 said:


> I have a bigger gripe with Universities which I think treat our children as cash-cows and do a poor job at educating.


In my view our education system starts at a very high quality level in Primary school and deteriorates as it progresses. The primary reason for this, again in my opinion, is that totally flawed Leaving Cert model which teaches children to remember, not to think. That absence of the ability to think critically is almost hard wires into the students by the time they get to college. Over the last 20 years I've found no link between educational attainment and the ability to problem solve within an engineering context. I have to presume that holds true in other areas.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (4 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> I think the "Old Boys network" may be overstated. That said I didn't go to a private school.


Same for me. I went to the local community school.  Mrs NRC went fee-paying and still hangs out with her school friends too. But they don't and indeed can't help each other professionally as they all do completely different things. 

The most useful contacts I've made professionally are the people I worked with in my 20s. No one knows or cares where I went to school.


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## Cervelo (4 Mar 2021)

I was sent to a a private college in D4 for all my schooling and though I had a great time and learned lots, I wouldn't consider that I got a good education in fact I'd say if my father had saved his money and sent me to a local public school I probably would have done better
It's not that the education I was given was in any way substandard it's just that I didn't apply myself to it.

I have to agree with you Purple, it was the education my father gave me when I joined his company that has really stood to me
The ability to think and problem solve while on your feet and the realization that those actions can have far reaching consequences
is not thought in books per se but learnt in the real world


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## dereko1969 (4 Mar 2021)

I found it a little surprising that the kid taking the Leaving Cert case lives in Celbridge but goes to Belvedere, how many schools does he pass on his way to and from school - would the additional time spent going to and from Belvedere than local have assisted him with studying more?


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## fungie20 (4 Mar 2021)

Cervelo said:


> It was the education my father gave me when I joined his company that has really stood to me
> The ability to think and problem solve while on your feet and the realization that those actions can have far reaching consequences
> is not thought in books per se but learnt in the real world



Not everyone has the luxury to be set up in their father's company though!


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## Purple (4 Mar 2021)

fungie20 said:


> Not everyone has the luxury to be set up in their father's company though!


It can be a mixed blessing I'm sure.

Not everyone has the luxury of being academic or having educated parents who can help them with their homework or having parents who can pay for grinds or having the right accent to help progress in their profession or knowing the right people to open doors for them etc.

All of those things help but for the vast majority of people their own hard work or lack thereof is the greatest determining factor in what their income is.


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## DublinHead54 (4 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> I think the "Old Boys network" may be overstated. That said I didn't go to a private school.
> 
> In my view our education system starts at a very high quality level in Primary school and deteriorates as it progresses. The primary reason for this, again in my opinion, is that totally flawed Leaving Cert model which teaches children to remember, not to think. That absence of the ability to think critically is almost hard wires into the students by the time they get to college. Over the last 20 years I've found no link between educational attainment and the ability to problem solve within an engineering context. I have to presume that holds true in other areas.



I have recently been partaking in a part-time masters course at a well known Irish university and I have been appalled at the level of teaching. There have been some throwaway remarks about masters courses not about learning material which I agree with in concept but not at the cost of poor teaching. Whilst there has been some excellent teaching, some appear to believe students are there to keep the university ticking over and teaching is a nonprimary aspect of their employment i.e. they are researchers first. Then comes the money piece.....

I completely agree the education system needing to be overhauled, I'd love to see aspects of critical thinking and reflection taught through philosophy and history topics, and problem-solving taught through coding / mathematics.


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## Cervelo (4 Mar 2021)

Purple is spot on that it can and was a mixed blessing, yes there was the security of a job for life and all trappings that came with that
But what is not really talked about is all the long days and the hard work that goes into running and maintaining a family business
and the responsibility/burden that is put on your shoulders as you grow the business for the next generation of family members, employees, suppliers and customers.


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## Leo (4 Mar 2021)

Cervelo said:


> Purple is spot on that it can and was a mixed blessing, yes there was the security of a job for life and all trappings that came with that



I turned down what would have been an easier option at the time of the family company and have no doubt that my life has been a *lot *easier and more financially rewarding as a result.


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## Purple (4 Mar 2021)

Cervelo said:


> Purple is spot on that it can and was a mixed blessing, yes there was the security of a job for life and all trappings that came with that
> But what is not really talked about is all the long days and the hard work that goes into running and maintaining a family business
> and the responsibility/burden that is put on your shoulders as you grow the business for the next generation of family members, employees, suppliers and customers.


There's also the fact that work is the primary place you make friends as an adult and that's much harder to do when you are the boss or a family member is a family business. There's more to life than money.


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## Purple (4 Mar 2021)

Dublinbay12 said:


> I have recently been partaking in a part-time masters course at a well known Irish university and I have been appalled at the level of teaching. There have been some throwaway remarks about masters courses not about learning material which I agree with in concept but not at the cost of poor teaching. Whilst there has been some excellent teaching, some appear to believe students are there to keep the university ticking over and teaching is a nonprimary aspect of their employment i.e. they are researchers first. Then comes the money piece.....


I recently did a diploma through TU Dublin. It was interesting and somewhat relevant but the whole thing was laughably easy. If that's what's involved in betting a diploma they aren't really worth a damn.

I am contacted by 3rd level institutions at least twice a month, looking for collaboration in research projects or support in our projects. I've yet to find anything that is actually useful.


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## Firefly (4 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> People send their kids to schools for lots of reasons, because their friends are going there, because they went there, because it's the local school, because it has a better reputation, because they think their child will get a better education or _because they are snobs_ or any mix of the above.


It's deadly for us...we often thought about buying a place in West Cork, but this way we get to be snobs for only 400 quid a month


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## meepman (4 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> When thy die and their children inherit the proceeds of their house then the children will be wealthy.
> If your parents don't own a house and won't leave you money it makes it hard for you to buy a house/pay off a mortgage and leave more cash for your children.
> I bought my first home in 1997, three years after qualifying as a Tradesman, because I thought that property prices would go up after 1998 when the ECB was established and exchange rates were frozen and interest rates (which were much lower in Europe) were set by that ECB. It was an apartment in Dublin City Centre. It cost £58,000 which was three times my income. Since then the rate of asset price inflation has far outpaced wage inflation. When the people who bought those assets cheap die their children will get a inheritance significantly bigger than their parents would have got relative to income.


Discussion gone off track a tad.

Agree on people who bought pre 00. But what about people who are buying now who have very little irish inheritance or are from a different country with little savings, What happens to them? They cant afford to buy most likely and even struggle to rent


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## Purple (5 Mar 2021)

meepman said:


> Discussion gone off track a tad.
> 
> Agree on people who bought pre 00. But what about people who are buying now who have very little irish inheritance or are from a different country with little savings, What happens to them? They cant afford to buy most likely and even struggle to rent


They are screwed, just like the Irish born in the same position.


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## gianni (11 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> I don't think most private schools cost €7000 a year, more like 4 or 5k. People send their kids to schools for lots of reasons, because their friends are going there, because they went there, because it's the local school, because it has a better reputation, because they think their child will get a better education or because they are snobs or any mix of the above. There is no evidence that private schools provide better educational outcomes than public schools in the same demographic catchment area.
> 
> I think you might want to take that chip off your shoulder.



https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/19/why-rich-people-tend-think-they-deserve-their-money/amp


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## RobFer (12 Mar 2021)

There is excellent data from the UK that private schools result in higher earnings later in life. I imagine some small rural schools would be also very good too. According to this data bad apple pupils do a lot of damage to the rest of the class. to It's not just because you have richer parents in private schools.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (12 Mar 2021)

RobFer said:


> There is excellent data from the UK that private schools result in higher earnings later in life. I imagine some small rural schools would be also very good too. According to this data bad apple pupils do a lot of damage to the rest of the class. to It's not just because you have richer parents in private schools.


There is 60 years of research and tens of thousands of papers and nothing vaguely conclusive on any of this.

It's very hard to disentangle the effects of what happens at school, at home, and in the wider world.


I would prioritise where your child fits in best. I went to a low-achieving community school and it really was the best for me as a kid as it had a great set of teachers and very little bullying.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (12 Mar 2021)

RobFer said:


> That isn't the dominant view.


I'm not an expert but am casually familiar with the academic literature. You just don't find large, unambiguous effects when you control for other factors.


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## dereko1969 (12 Mar 2021)

I wonder if there was a common denominator school in the Davy 16?


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## Purple (15 Mar 2021)

RobFer said:


> That isn't the dominant view.


That's true, it isn't the common view. It's the factually correct view though. 
Doctors children are more likely to become doctors.
Business owners children are more likely to own that (or another) business.
Plumbers children are more likely to become plumbers.

Saying that children who go to private schools do better financially in life because of the school is assigning causality for an entire outcome to a single factor. It is without merit.


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## time to plan (16 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> Saying that children who go to private schools do better financially in life because of the school is assigning causality for an entire outcome to a single factor. It is without merit.


Your statement is without merit (a logical car crash really), unless people are saying that children who go to private schools do better financially in life *solely *because of the school.


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## Purple (16 Mar 2021)

time to plan said:


> Your statement is without merit (a logical car crash really), unless people are saying that children who go to private schools do better financially in life *solely *because of the school.


What?
That's what I said.


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## time to plan (16 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> What?
> That's what I said.


No it isn't. The word 'solely' is important. That's why I emboldened it.


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## Purple (16 Mar 2021)

time to plan said:


> No it isn't. The word 'solely' is important. That's why I emboldened it.


I said;


Purple said:


> Saying that children who go to private schools do better financially in life because of the school is assigning causality for an entire outcome to a* single factor*. It is without merit.



I must be stupid. Can you explain the difference between "single" and "sole" in this context?


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## RedOnion (16 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> I must be stupid.


Didn't go to private school?....

Sorry, couldn't resist.


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## Purple (16 Mar 2021)

RedOnion said:


> Didn't go to private school?....
> 
> Sorry, couldn't resist.


That must be it.


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## time to plan (16 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> I said;
> 
> 
> I must be stupid. Can you explain the difference between "single" and "sole" in this context?


'Single factor' is on the cause clause of the sentence. You omitted to put 'solely' in the effect clause of the sentence, so the logic falls down.


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## Purple (16 Mar 2021)

time to plan said:


> 'Single factor' is on the cause clause of the sentence. You omitted to put 'solely' in the effect clause of the sentence, so the logic falls down.


Now you're being silly. 
You misread what I said or you have trouble with comprehension. There is no need to put solely in the effect clause of the sentence for the meaning to be accurate and clear.


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## time to plan (16 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> Now you're being silly.
> You misread what I said or you have trouble with comprehension. There is no need to put solely in the effect clause of the sentence for the meaning to be accurate and clear.



Now you're being daft.
You tried to pull someone else up, and made a mess of things. I'm guessing it's not for the first time on this forum.


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## Purple (16 Mar 2021)

time to plan said:


> Now you're being daft.
> You tried to pull someone else up, and made a mess of things. I'm guessing it's not for the first time on this forum.


I really have no idea what you are talking about.
If you can't understand what I said and everyone else can that's on you.


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## dereko1969 (16 Mar 2021)

time to plan said:


> Now you're being daft.
> You tried to pull someone else up, and made a mess of things. I'm guessing it's not for the first time on this forum.


What a charming post from a relative newcomer. I think you'll find that Purple's posts never do that.


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## Purple (16 Mar 2021)

dereko1969 said:


> What a charming post from a relative newcomer. I think you'll find that Purple's posts never do that.


Thanks. I have, on occasion, made a mess of posts but I acknowledge it when I do.
I'm far from the most highly educated or intelligent person posting here but upon rereading the above posts I still don't understand how my meaning was unclear.
Maybe it's just me... or maybe it's just me and everyone else except TtoP.


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## Leo (16 Mar 2021)

Are we allowing for how much influence invested parents have in the outcome?


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## Gordon Gekko (17 Mar 2021)

It’s oversimplistic to say that they’re better.

There are a whole myriad of factors.

The parents have more cash, which is probably a function of their own success, work-ethic, and/or intelligence. So the home environment is probably more conducive to achievement. 

The people are more like-minded and have a view on what “success” looks like.

There’s more spare resources to do broader extracurricular stuff.

But are they better? Yes, they probably are in the main, but for many reasons, mostly linked to other factors.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (17 Mar 2021)

Gordon Gekko said:


> But are they better? Yes, they probably are in the main, but for many reasons, mostly linked to other factors.



There is also the issue of value. Suppose you have €30k to spend on your child's education. You can of course spend it on school fees.

But in pure bang-for-buck terms that €30k would be much better spent on subsidising a taught masters, qualification or other professional training in a high-paid industry,


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## Purple (18 Mar 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> But in pure bang-for-buck terms that €30k would be much better spent on subsidising a taught masters, qualification or other professional training in a high-paid industry,


Assuming they get that far by doing well in the memory test that is the Leaving Cert.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (18 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> Assuming they get that far by doing well in the memory test that is the Leaving Cert.


Life is a memory test


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## Purple (18 Mar 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> Life is a memory test


No it's not. The function of education should be to develop the mind and teach people to think critically.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (18 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> No it's not. The function of education should be to develop the mind and teach people to think critically.


It's a bit of both. My son hates learning his eight-times tables at the moment but this is a very useful life skill.

A lot of the LC is critical thinking anyway: the history and English exams for example aren't about listing dates or writing poetry from memory.


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## Purple (18 Mar 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> It's a bit of both. My son hates learning his eight-times tables at the moment but this is a very useful life skill.
> 
> A lot of the LC is critical thinking anyway: the history and English exams for example aren't about listing dates or writing poetry from memory.


My son is doing the Leaving Cert this year. It's all about learning the right answers rather than offering an informed opinion in both History and English, particularly in History. He's pointed out things in his book which are factually incorrect but he's been told that the person checking the paper won't know that so give the answers which are expected.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (18 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> It's all about learning the right answers rather than offering an informed opinion in both History and English,


Well that wasn't my approach, and I got an A1 in both


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## Purple (18 Mar 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> Well that wasn't my approach, and I got an A1 in both


There was no A1's in my day, just A's and B's. I got an A and a B but I did find it a memory test back then and from what I can see little has changed.


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## DublinHead54 (18 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> My son is doing the Leaving Cert this year. It's all about learning the right answers rather than offering an informed opinion in both History and English, particularly in History. He's pointed out things in his book which are factually incorrect but he's been told that the person checking the paper won't know that so give the answers which are expected.



On similar theme, I watched the 'Varsity Blues / College Admissions scandal' document on Netflix last night. It was pretty interesting and made good points that standardized testing is flawed. The children of wealthy / affluent / educated parents should statistically perform better. The admission process and pressure on children in the US seems very intense.

I suppose standardized testing removes subjectivity from the marker but it does weaken the learning experience.


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## Steven Barrett (18 Mar 2021)

Dublinbay12 said:


> On similar theme, I watched the 'Varsity Blues / College Admissions scandal' document on Netflix last night. It was pretty interesting and made good points that standardized testing is flawed. The children of wealthy / affluent / educated parents should statistically perform better. *The admission process and pressure on children in the US seems very intense.*
> 
> I suppose standardized testing removes subjectivity from the marker but it does weaken the learning experience.


But then it isn't reliant on the child's performance in one written exam. There are a number of different considerations to giving a child a place in a college.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (18 Mar 2021)

Dublinbay12 said:


> . It was pretty interesting and made good points that standardized testing is flawed. The children of wealthy / affluent / educated parents should statistically perform better.


Children of tall people are generally taller than the rest of us.

This does not make a measuring tape "flawed". It is just a tool for measuring height the same way that standardized testing is just a tool for measuring cognitive ability.


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## Purple (18 Mar 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> Children of tall people are generally taller than the rest of us.
> 
> This does not make a measuring tape "flawed". It is just a tool for measuring height the same way that standardized testing is just a tool for measuring cognitive ability.


It's a good way of testing if they have remembered what they were told, and that's fine. 
Our system doesn't teach people to have an enquiring and open mind or to think critically. It prepares them for an entry test for third level. That's all the Leaving Cert is.


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## DublinHead54 (18 Mar 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> Children of tall people are generally taller than the rest of us.
> 
> This does not make a measuring tape "flawed". It is just a tool for measuring height the same way that standardized testing is just a tool for measuring cognitive ability.



The point the documentary was making is that the 'rich' people have the means to prepare their children better, be that hire tutors, buy test prep etc.



Purple said:


> It's a good way of testing if they have remembered what they were told, and that's fine.
> Our system doesn't teach people to have an enquiring and open mind or to think critically. It prepares them for an entry test for third level. That's all the Leaving Cert is.


I agree.


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## Purple (18 Mar 2021)

Dublinbay12 said:


> The point the documentary was making is that the 'rich' people have the means to prepare their children better, be that hire tutors, buy test prep etc.


I agree. They are, as a cohort, generally better educated, more engaged in their children's education and more likely to see the benefits of education generally. 
The child will also be in a peer group whose parents also tick those boxes above.


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## Gordon Gekko (18 Mar 2021)

It’s more about the home environment. But all of these things are intertwined, with correlation often being mistaken for causality.

I went to private school and I’ve done okay. Is it because I went to private school? No, it’s not. It’s because both my parents are pretty smart and I grew up in an environment where I was taught the importance of hard work and where dossing just wouldn’t have been tolerated. I was pretty decent at studying but if I didn’t bother, I’d get a proverbial kick in the rear-end. I also had good facilities in terms of there being a Study in the house. And my brother and sisters aspired to have decent jobs or their own businesses, as did my pals, so there was a culture of 

I’d attribute almost all of any relative success I’ve enjoyed to the home environment.

The flipside is that it must be very difficult for someone, no matter how smart or wealthy he or she is, if their homelife is messy.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (18 Mar 2021)

Dublinbay12 said:


> The point the documentary was making is that the 'rich' people have the means to prepare their children better, be that hire tutors, buy test prep etc.


Even when I was a teenager you could learn a huge amount just by going to the local library and reading. That's what I did anyway and I'm sure it helped me do well in exams. My parents didn't encourage or prevent me. The library could have been filled with other teenagers but it generally wasn't.

It's even better now as any teenager has pretty much the sum of human knowledge searchable on a smartphone. Despite this, educational achievement still varies hugely.

People are going to need to come up with a better theory than environment.


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## Purple (19 Mar 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> Even when I was a teenager you could learn a huge amount just by going to the local library and reading. That's what I did anyway and I'm sure it helped me do well in exams. My parents didn't encourage or prevent me. The library could have been filled with other teenagers but it generally wasn't.
> 
> It's even better now as any teenager has pretty much the sum of human knowledge searchable on a smartphone. Despite this, educational achievement still varies hugely.
> 
> People are going to need to come up with a better theory than environment.


It's not down to any one factor but environment matters. It might matter most, most of the time. The school is part of the environment but it certainly isn't all of it.


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## Purple (22 Mar 2021)

Dr. Andreas Schleicher, agrees with me in relation to the Leaving Cert. In an OECD report on the Irish Second level education system he said; 
_"Students get taught one curriculum, it’s quite heavily focused on the reproduction of subject matter content, and not that much focus on getting students to think out of the box and link across the boundaries of subject matter disciplines.”_ Source

He also makes some very interesting comments on class sizes (they don't matter) and the ability to distinguish fact from opinion.


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## NoRegretsCoyote (22 Mar 2021)

Purple said:


> He also makes some very interesting comments on class sizes (they don't matter)


A good teacher with 30 pupils is much better than a bad one with 20. There is probably some upper limit (my dad claims there were 50 pupils in his junior infants class which was probably hard to manage) but in the 20-30 range we are talking about class sizes just don't matter.

The only people consistently in favour of smaller class sizes are teachers' unions of course.


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## AlbacoreA (22 Mar 2021)

I had one class that was 40+ in secondary. The main issue with that, is you got almost zero time with the teacher. So if you keep up with everything 100% of the time no problem. If you didn't there was no way of getting the attention needed to catch up.


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## AlbacoreA (22 Mar 2021)

If you are going to private it school that in of itself might not be a huge advantage.
But its death of thousand paper cuts, its highly likely you have a load of other advantages thats you are not aware of.
But there's are private schools which are terrible, and kids do badly in them. 

Sweeping generalizations only go so far. They are no good to you if the school you pick ends up being an outlier.


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