Are fee-paying schools worth it?

Irish Times: ‘It was the right thing to do’: The Dublin private school that dropped its fees​

This article is about a small Church of Ireland school that switched from fee-paying to public 10 years ago. They did it for practical and financial reasons as they only had 120 students and would not be able to sustain themselves. They now have 300 students and can offer a wider curriculum.

Interesting to read the background of many fee-paying schools was to serve smaller religious communities.
 
arbitron said:
Interesting to read the background of many fee-paying schools was to serve smaller religious communities.
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Yep, if you live outside Dublin and you want to send your protestant child to a protestant secondary school then your only real option is to pay for it. Your options are even more limited if you want to send them to a protestant primary school. Interesting perspective here.
If you're a atheist then you have slightly more options at secondary level.

When we take all religion out of all of our schools then we can talk about not funding minority religious ethos schools. Then religion, a personal matter which should be the responsibility of the parents, can be indoctrinated into children in their home.
 
Does that article not say that self-reported instances of bad behaviour are higher in private schools?

An alternative headline might be ‘State School Puplils Are Liars”!

Ridiculous stuff.
 
Purple said:
What a disgustingly biased headline. The Irish Times is turning into a pinko version of Fox News.
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The headline reflects what the professor said. The IT is openly "pinko" but if you are comparing it to Fox News you clearly you have never had the displeasure of watching it.

Gordon Gekko said:
Does that article not say that self-reported instances of bad behaviour are higher in private schools?

An alternative headline might be ‘State School Puplils Are Liars”!

Ridiculous stuff.
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Just because it's self-reported doesn't mean it's not valid. Not sure why the alternative is that public school students are the liars, maybe the fee-paying kids are pretending to be outlaws for the street cred.
 
arbitron said:
The headline reflects what the professor said. The IT is openly "pinko" but if you are comparing it to Fox News you clearly you have never had the displeasure of watching it.
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I have watched it and I see the IT getting closer and closer to it from a bias perspective all the time.
arbitron said:
Just because it's self-reported doesn't mean it's not valid. Not sure why the alternative is that public school students are the liars, maybe the fee-paying kids are pretending to be outlaws for the street cred.
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No, the report states that "However, it found that antisocial behaviour – such as stealing or graffiti – and truancy were higher in fee-charging schools compared with others when adjusted for family background factors."
The "when adjusted for family background factors" is the key phrase here and leaving it out of the headline is a gross distortion and misrepresentation of the data. The headline also ignores the fact that the data is self reported so it is just as likely to be telling us that kids n private schools are more likely to be honest when answering questionnaires.

It's a good example of a sub-editor imposing their bias on an article in a way that misrepresents the truth to such an extent that it becomes untruthful. It's exactly the sort of shoddy journalistic standards I expect from the Irish Times.
 
arbitron said:
The headline reflects what the professor said. The IT is openly "pinko" but if you are comparing it to Fox News you clearly you have never had the displeasure of watching it.



Just because it's self-reported doesn't mean it's not valid. Not sure why the alternative is that public school students are the liars, maybe the fee-paying kids are pretending to be outlaws for the street cred.
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Pinko! The 1980s just phoned and they want their Reds Under the Beds conspiracy back.
 
Purple said:
No, the report states that "However, it found that antisocial behaviour – such as stealing or graffiti – and truancy were higher in fee-charging schools compared with others when adjusted for family background factors."
The "when adjusted for family background factors" is the key phrase here and leaving it out of the headline is a gross distortion and misrepresentation of the data. The headline also ignores the fact that the data is self reported so it is just as likely to be telling us that kids n private schools are more likely to be honest when answering questionnaires.

It's a good example of a sub-editor imposing their bias on an article in a way that misrepresents the truth to such an extent that it becomes untruthful. It's exactly the sort of shoddy journalistic standards I expect from the Irish Times.
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A headline is hardly going to include detail explaining that social science research will take into account the effect of variables. Unless you have access to and have analysed the paper/data then it's a big claim to say it is a "gross distortion" or "misrepresentation".

The fact that it was adjusted for certain factors is not evidence of any wrongdoing, that is a normal part of the scientific process to ensure you are comparing like with like.

It's not "just as likely" to be the case that private school kids are more honest - that is one of several possible ways to interpret it but again you would need to look at the data to make that claim.

time to plan said:
Pinko! The 1980s just phoned and they want their Reds Under the Beds conspiracy back.
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On another thread recently it was revealed that recycling plastic bottles is apparently a Soviet plot.
 
arbitron said:
A headline is hardly going to include detail explaining that social science research will take into account the effect of variables. Unless you have access to and have analysed the paper/data then it's a big claim to say it is a "gross distortion" or "misrepresentation".

The fact that it was adjusted for certain factors is not evidence of any wrongdoing, that is a normal part of the scientific process to ensure you are comparing like with like.
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The headline was a gross misrepresentation of what is written below it. You don't need access to the research, you just need to read the article. The headline makes a claim about antisocial behaviour that is completely out of context. There's nothing wrong with the research as quoted in the article. It is the grossly misleading headline with which I have an issue.

arbitron said:
It's not "just as likely" to be the case that private school kids are more honest - that is one of several possible ways to interpret it but again you would need to look at the data to make that claim.
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It's just as legitimate as the headline they used. Neither is in any way an accurate reflection of the substance of the article.
 
arbitron said:
A headline is hardly going to include detail explaining that social science research will take into account the effect of variables. Unless you have access to and have analysed the paper/data then it's a big claim to say it is a "gross distortion" or "misrepresentation".

The fact that it was adjusted for certain factors is not evidence of any wrongdoing, that is a normal part of the scientific process to ensure you are comparing like with like.

It's not "just as likely" to be the case that private school kids are more honest - that is one of several possible ways to interpret it but again you would need to look at the data to make that claim.


On another thread recently it was revealed that recycling plastic bottles is apparently a Soviet plot.
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I don't need to look at the paper to know that whatever data they had was tortured until it conformed to ideology of the researchers. It's 'social' science after all, not actual science.
 
Nermal said:
I don't need to look at the paper to know that whatever data they had was tortured until it conformed to ideology of the researchers. It's 'social' science after all, not actual science.
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But it panders to a certain demographic (as arbitron's enthusiastic endorsement confirms!) And the IT marketing chaps and chapettes know what demographic to target.
 
Marsupial said:
But it panders to a certain demographic
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Yes, the reasonably well qualified middle classes who resent less qualifies people who have more than them. Nothing upsets a smoked salmon socialist more than someone who is more financially successful than them but didn't go to 3rd level. The worst of all is someone from that cohort who earns more than a "professional" but just being better off is enough to invoke their ire.
 
Devastatingly the usually centrist/right-of-centre Newstalk has also fallen victim to this scandalous report.

And it turns out our IT comrades have been at it for years. In 2021, they had a similar piece on a study from ESRI which said:

The study found a significant variation in behaviour patterns between school types - Deis, non-Deis or fee-paying - even taking account of the social background of their students.

Young people attending disadvantaged or Deis schools had higher levels of school- based misbehaviour, truancy and antisocial behaviour.
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So the poor and the posh are both on the naughty list.

For anyone actually interested in the findings of these reports, they boiled down to:
  • Some differences between school types
  • Deis kids show more empathy than non-Deis and private students
  • "School policies and climate" are important, as are myriad social factors
  • It's not really a big deal anyway as teenagers are generally rebellious and it all comes out in the wash
 
arbitron said:
Devastatingly the usually centrist/right-of-centre Newstalk has also fallen victim to this scandalous report.

And it turns out our IT comrades have been at it for years. In 2021, they had a similar piece on a study from ESRI which said:



So the poor and the posh are both on the naughty list.

For anyone actually interested in the findings of these reports, they boiled down to:
  • Some differences between school types
  • Deis kids show more empathy than non-Deis and private students
  • "School policies and climate" are important, as are myriad social factors
  • It's not really a big deal anyway as teenagers are generally rebellious and it all comes out in the wash
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I'm my experience most posh people aren't rich and most rich people certainly aren't posh.
The poshest people I ever met live on a farm in Donegal. They are old planter stock and eat their spaghetti off a dinner plate with a knife and fork. Their table manners, and manners generally, are impeccable. Their use of the Kings English is polished and perfect. They are very well read, incredibly courteous and astoundingly nice people who would never dream of finishing a sentence with a proposition and they hardly have an backside in their trousers.

I've also met plenty of uncouth, rude and ignorant people who are rich. Manners, and indeed class, are not dependent on financial status.
 
Purple said:
Yes, the reasonably well qualified middle classes who resent less qualifies people who have more than them. Nothing upsets a smoked salmon socialist more than someone who is more financially successful than them but didn't go to 3rd level. The worst of all is someone from that cohort who earns more than a "professional" but just being better off is enough to invoke their ire.
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From which I assume that you yield to no man in your admiration for Conor McGregor? :p

The poshest people I ever met live on a farm in Donegal. They are old planter stock and eat their spaghetti off a dinner plate with a knife and fork. Their table manners, and manners generally, are impeccable. Their use of the Kings English is polished and perfect. They are very well read, incredibly courteous and astoundingly nice people who would never dream of finishing a sentence with a proposition ......
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And how often have they propositioned you?
 
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