The history of education in the UK is a history of private success and public failure.
Research regularly tells us the best education systems in the world are those with little central interference.
This is not the model I see in the academies and free schools initiatives.
Over the years state education has become less about children and more about the fortunes of governments and individual ministers.
Schools have become caught up in an unseemly web of legislation that blows this way and that.
The independent school model works because it responds to a fundamental right and a fundamental responsibility.
Parents have the right to have their children educated as well as possible. They therefore have the responsibility to pay for it.
The partnership between hard-working parents, motivated students and committed schools has ensured no stakeholder rests on their laurels.
The freedom of schools as charities to charge fees in order to make a surplus means investment can be made in a school’s provision.
It is a virtuous cycle. Introducing the state into the equation removes motivation of all parties.
The over-involvement of government in many areas of our lives is a socialist hang-over that has infantilised the nation for generations.
All that has resulted is a lacklustre parade of cheap and low quality provision funded by an agency, the state, which has failed to create successful and lasting change in the way children are educated.
I believe the state, among many things unrelated to education, is there for the most vulnerable. It is there for those who cannot help themselves.
I am the first in line to pay my dues to a government that will lavish care on the unloved, the problematic and often unruly in our society.
That is the original philosophy of the Welfare State.
Dr Seldon says the perceived difficulties associated with fee-paying schools sponsoring academies “need not be burdensome” and the practical difficulties “are much exaggerated”.
As I see it, transforming a failing school or starting a new one is a Sisyphean task.
If an independent school wants to sponsor an academy properly, they need to invest time and energy into it.
If the practical difficulties are easily overcome, the task is not challenging enough and the reward not worth the effort.
We do not have money to spare to send teachers and deputies to form schools elsewhere. And we are behoven to our parents who are already paying twice for education.
As regards private schools “perpetuating social divides”, I want rather to perpetuate the right sort of divide – where the deserving are rewarded and the indolent do not prosper.
However we have lost sight of what a genuine meritocracy is.
Too many do well because of unearned advantage. Others expect help when they are unwilling to give of themselves.
By making education something all parents buy into and make sacrifices for, we have more chance of seeing motivated pupils and united families working towards common goals.
The engine room of the private sector is the hard working school that has to pull together a tough budget each year and strain every sinew to ensure that the educational offering is as high quality as it could be.
It is a tough ask, because they live in an unpredictable and unstable environment and must deliver or die.
As I walk the corridors of my school, I am acutely aware of the sacrifice families are making in financial terms to enjoy the first class education we offer. I am under pressure, as are my fantastic colleagues, to give value for money.
It has created, in the vast number of cases, a co-operation between parent and school for the success of those children in my care. It works. And it has worked here at Taunton School for 164 years.
I often get told independent schools do not live `in the real world’ and commercial organisations know all about survival in tough economic conditions.
Yet I know of few organisations that have lasted more than 100 years.
However, I know of dozens and dozens of fee-charging independent schools who have thrived and been successful over generations.
I believe education should be paid for – yes with a contribution through the tax system from the Government, called by many a voucher scheme.
Otherwise, parents should be allowed to top up what they want and go where they choose.
Schools, logically, would be free to teach and deliver as they please, and charge whatever top up they saw fit.
An inspectorate would guarantee basic standards. Such vouchers would be allowable also at independent schools.
A marketplace develops.
Competition between schools ensues. Schools improve or go under.
Parents see where their hard earned money is going.
Parents are more likely to work better together as a family for the good of their children if they are paying for their education.
‧ Dr John Newton is the Headmaster of Taunton School.
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