Why Becca Atkinson is wrong

Embarrassed, slightly ashamed and not particularly surprised – these were my feelings after reading Becca Atkinson’s apparently serious ‘Why Private Schools Are Better’ piece yesterday. Sadly it’s impossible to attend Bristol (or any private school for that matter) without encountering people like Becca, who prance about like the bastard offspring of Iain Duncan Smith and JP from Fresh Meat.

 

An article so bad even Gideon found it offensive.

These are the kind of people who have nothing to offer society other than turgid second-hand opinions, a Himalayan sense of entitlement and the sort of ignorance that can only be inculcated by spending one’s formative years surrounded by similarly cash-coddled, arriviste arseholes.

A blow by blow critical analysis of Becca’s article seems almost redundant after nearly 500 comments expressing (rightful) and vivid revulsion at the sentiments it contains – a bit like pointing out that Alan Shearer’s analysis on MOTD is pretty shite, or that Morrissey’s vegetarianism is on the extreme side. There are, however, a few more observations that deserve to be made:

• “From my perspective my parents paid two sets of school fees, mine at a price I won’t disclose, and yours, through their taxes.” Except that, given the vast majority of private schools in the UK are granted charitable status they save up to £100 million in tax breaks. Looks like everybody’s parents are paying two sets of school fees. No wonder Owen Jones described private schools as a form of ‘taxpayer-subsidised class privilege’.
• ” students who are dedicated to various sports, which makes them leaders and team players.” Anybody who has attended a private school knows just how laughable this is. The self-described ‘jocks’ at the private school I attended were often (but not exclusively) the biggest, dumbest dickheads imaginable. Hardly the leaders of the future.
• “In my opinion, ‘posh prejudice’ is just as bad as racism or homophobia.” There are potentially thousands of words that could explain in great detail how wrong this astonishingly myopic statement is, but in the interests of brevity, just two will suffice: fuck off.
•  ‘more one-on-one attention so students thrive’ Yeah some private schools, including ones attended by Tony Blair, Nick Clegg and Boris are pretty famous for the pastoral care on offer aren’t they Becca?

Another ‘leader of the future’.

Of course not everybody who goes to a private school is a crude pastiche like JP. However, Becca’s child-like egotism is a symptom of a far wider malaise that places money and those who have it at the centre of our universe, that glorifies self-interest and laughs at those who are worse off (looking at you Benefits Street). It is not right that almost two-thirds of A-level students from the independent sector went on to Britain’s leading institutions in 2010/11 compared with less than a quarter of those from the state system.

It’s not just the educational system in this country that’s skewed – both the government and the economy seem to exist for the benefit of privileged minorities who are more than capable of looking after themselves. When Jarvis Cocker sang that ‘cunts are still running the world’ he got at something that most of us know and are angry about but feel helpless to change. Why should money be the factor that determines a person’s outcomes?

An education that is paid for does not guarantee a more intelligent or well-rounded individual. Clearly, in some cases, it does precisely the opposite.