State school fees call for parents earning over £80,000
Dr Anthony Seldon said the more parents earn, the more they should pay Parents who earn a combined income of more than £80,000 should have to pay if their children go to the most popular state schools, a report suggests.
Dr Anthony Seldon, headmaster at the private Wellington College, raises the idea in a report for cross-party think tank the Social Market Foundation,
He said it would break "the middle-class stranglehold on top state schools" and provide additional funds.
Poorer pupils should fill a quarter of private school places, he adds.
'Unfair farce'Dr Seldon argues a "new wave" of radical education reform is needed to end the educational divide between state and independent schools and boost social mobility.
"We have to end this unfair farce whereby middle-class parents dominate the best schools, when they could afford to pay and even boast of their moral superiority in using the state system when all they are doing is squeezing the poor from the best schools," Dr Seldon said in the report.
Dr Seldon is headmaster at Wellington College Revisiting proposals he first raised in 2001, Dr Seddon said: "The more parents earn, the more they should pay".
Families earning more than £200,000 per year should pay the full price of their children's education at popular state schools, the report, called Schools United: Ending the divide between independent and state, said.
Fees at the most oversubscribed state schools could be the same for the most affluent as those at independent day schools, about £15,000 a year for some primary schools, and £20,000 at secondary schools.
Dr Seldon said the move would help to close the "unfair" gap between the academic achievements and career prospects of the richest and poorest children by using the money raised to pay for more teachers and smaller classes.
He said a quarter of the money raised through charging should be retained by the school, with the rest redistributed among other state schools.
The report says "far reaching reforms" in the state education system introduced since 2000 by Labour's Lord Adonis and his coalition successor as education secretary, Michael Gove, have led to improved standards and should be completed.
But it says state schools should also look to emulate features of independent schools such as house systems, boarding, longer school days, uniforms and greater parental involvement.
Meanwhile, it adds, independent schools should share teaching and other facilities with the state sector.
The proposal to offer poorer pupils places at independent schools says their fees should be paid by a government grant capped 50% above the cost of sending them to a state school.
Dr Seddon ended the report by saying the UK would be "in debt for many years to come" and that state schooling was "the last great bastion holding out against the principle of payment".
The Sunday Times reports that Dr Seldon has discussed the plans with politicians from both main parties.
Social Market Foundation director Emran Mian said: "Anthony Seldon is trying to use excellence wherever he can find it in the schools system to give opportunities to the most disadvantaged."
"His agnosticism - who cares if the school is state or independent, so long as it's accessible to the most talented, not the richest - will make some on the political right, as well as the left, uncomfortable."
In December, the head of education watchdog Ofsted warned of differences in pupil attainment across the country. Chief inspector of schools Sir Michael Wilshaw said the gap was like "two nations".
In separate comments, he said that grammar schools were "stuffed full" of middle-class children and did not improve social mobility.
Research, meanwhile, has suggested that about one in three professional parents in England has moved to an area they consider to have good schools.
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