If we believe in the potential of every child how can we accept a system that allows the 7% of pupils who are privately educated to take half the places at top Universities like Oxford and Cambridge. And what of the broader implications of this educational inequality? How can we accept that the majority of senior barristers, judges, media and cultural professions will be filled on the basis of whether or not your parents had enough money to send you to a certain school?His solution? Ban private schools in the name of equality. He even makes an infelicitous (though telling) comparison to the French Revolution and the naked use of force that accompanied it:
Let’s storm the private schools like the French once stormed the Bastille and make those wonderful private schools the property of us all, where every child gets to enjoy such fantastic facilities and resources.Mr. Rooney tries to sugarcoat his prescription by claiming that such a ban will somehow improve public schools. Keep in mind that parents of privately schooled children still pay taxes that fund public schools, so such a notion is magical thinking at best. More likely, it is a red herring. A pretext appealing to values and self-interest (even if collectivized) is still politically necessary in a culture that has not yet descended into abject egalitarianism and sacrifice-worship.
Mr. Rooney makes it clear repeatedly that his moral ideal is equality, and you can be damned sure that quality of education is an expendable value to him in achieving that end.
