All posts tagged: private schools

Private school body launches legal action over VAT plan

Private school body launches legal action over VAT plan

Published by skeptic

The Independent Schools Council said the decision ‘has not been taken lightly’ but it is ‘defending the rights of families who have chosen independent education’ The Independent Schools Council said the decision ‘has not been taken lightly’ but it is ‘defending the rights of families who have chosen independent education’ More from this theme Recent articles A body representing private schools is launching legal action against the government’s decision to levy VAT on their fees. Julie Robinson, chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, said the decision “has not been taken lightly and has been under consideration for many months”. Robinson At yesterday’s budget, chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed plans to go ahead with the introduction of VAT on private school fees from January 2025.  The ISC, an umbrella body for seven associations representing such schools, said its case would centre around alleged breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Human Rights Act 1998. Robinson said: “At all points throughout this debate, our focus has been on the children in our schools who …

Marina Hyde on Sunak and class, my parachute failed at at 4,000ft, my gaming-addicted son, and a new approach to quitting smoking – podcast | Life and style

Marina Hyde on Sunak and class, my parachute failed at at 4,000ft, my gaming-addicted son, and a new approach to quitting smoking – podcast | Life and style

Published by skeptic

Marina Hyde on poor Rishi, who had to go without a Sky subscription as a teenager; Chris Godfrey spent a decade trying to quit smoking, then he tried hypnotherapy and it changed his life; when Jordan Hatmaker pulled the string of her parachute, she realised something was very wrong; and ‘My grownup son is gaming all day and lives on takeaways’ – Philippa Perry offers advice to a mother How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know Source link

A century ago, one state tried to close religious schools − a far cry from today

A century ago, one state tried to close religious schools − a far cry from today

Published by Sam

(The Conversation) — Almost 100 years ago, a group of nuns joined a suit against the state of Oregon – and made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Their cause? Keeping Catholic schools open. In 1922, voters approved an initiative requiring almost all children ages 8-16 to attend public schools – a motion aimed at closing faith-based schools in particular. But the Supreme Court’s 1925 ruling in their case, Pierce v. Society of Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary, favored the nuns. The ruling became a Magna Carta of sorts for private schools, including faith-based ones, safeguarding their right to operate – both secular and religious. Equally as importantly, Pierce has been used to protect parental rights to make choices about their children’s education. Nonpublic schools such as the ones run by the Society of Sisters no longer must defend their rights to exist. Today, the pendulum has swung the other way: In recent years, the Supreme Court has increasingly allowed public funding to go to faith-based schools, their …

Grammar schools braced for surge in demand as Labour plans new tax | Politics | News

Grammar schools braced for surge in demand as Labour plans new tax | Politics | News

Published by skeptic

Grammar schools are expecting a huge surge in demand after Labour announced a tax raid on private education. Private schools meanwhile are preparing for a mass exodus of pupils as part of the VAT proposal. It would see fees increase by 20 percent should Labour take power. Tutoring groups now say they have been inundated with parents looking to get help for their child as they prepare to take the 11-plus exams. Critics of Labour’s plan say the already oversubscribed grammar school system will be swamped by an influx of former private school children. Grammar schools currently receive as many applications as they have places, with half of them oversubscribed by 50 percent. More than a quarter say applications more than double the number of spaces available, reports the Telegraph. The publication reports independent school leaders said most private schools would increase fees should the proposed VAT raid go ahead. Parents meanwhile fear they would be priced out of private education should the VAT exemption be scrapped. Around 76 percent of schools surveyed by the …

The Nation Still Needs a New Birth in Liberty

The Nation Still Needs a New Birth in Liberty

Published by skeptic

To Reconstruct the Nation In the December 2023 issue, The Atlantic revisited Reconstruction, America’s most radical experiment. Explore the March 2024 Issue Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read. View More I’ve just finished reading “To Reconstruct the Nation” from cover to cover. I found it poignant, inspiring, and a necessary corrective to the 1901 series, which drowned out the sagacious words of Frederick Douglass with those of Woodrow Wilson and the naysayer historians of the Dunning School. The articles illuminate a side of American history not covered in many contemporary textbooks; they detail the pernicious aftereffects of slavery and the creation of so-called Black Codes. Anna Deavere Smith’s This Ghost of Slavery made a compelling case about the racist roots of America’s juvenile-justice system. Few know the history of how Elizabeth Turner was taken from her mother through legal means, or how the Orphans’ Court favored slavers and often found emancipated Black parents incapable of taking care of their children. This issue should be read in schools. It’s …

American Privilege: The One Percent, Myself Included

American Privilege: The One Percent, Myself Included

Published by skeptic

In the first spring of the pandemic, I worked a few shifts at a hospital in Brooklyn. The governor had asked on television that health-care workers volunteer, and tens of thousands did. I was surely among the least qualified—an EMT on paper, I had ’til then logged a total of 12 hours, a single overnight ambulance rotation amid the bars and projects of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The hospital human-resources administrator noted my inexperience and asked if I was willing to work in the morgue. That’s where they could really use the help, she explained. I had been looking forward to treating the living, but on quick reflection supposed the dead were more commensurate with my level of experience and agreed to go wherever she thought best. The work consisted of bagging, moving, tagging, and inventorying corpses. The main problem, for me, was goggles. Mine fogged up. We were advised, however, not to touch our goggles once we had them on, lest we bring the virus from our hands to our faces. And so, as …

These State Schools Also Favor the 1 Percent

These State Schools Also Favor the 1 Percent

Published by skeptic

Earlier this month, the century-old Pac-12 athletic conference was swiftly and brutally eviscerated. In the space of a few hours, five member universities left for rival conferences offering massive paydays financed by TV-sports contracts. As Jemele Hill put it for The Atlantic, the shift “pits the long-term interests of schools and conferences against their own insatiable greed.” Sports lovers are used to watching their favorite teams put money ahead of the wishes of their fans. That makes it easy to forget that this isn’t a story about professional-sports franchises—or, indeed, private entities of any kind. All five of the defecting schools are public universities: Washington, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State. The money grab in college football is just one symptom of a troubling strain in American public higher education. Many of our public universities, it turns out, don’t act very much like public institutions at all. It’s natural to assume that public institutions of higher education would be more egalitarian than their private counterparts. In K–12, public school is free, while private school is …