BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
It creates stereotypes and tensions within society

There are of course many other divisions in society. Any established 'group' tends to stick together due to their common interests. You do not improve the situation by trying to abolish the basis of a group. The positive social policy is to build communication bridges. In the case of education there was just such a bridge growing in importance - the grammar schools. They gave free real opportunities to the bright but disadvantaged. They were abolished in the name of equality. The result has been that the state sector lost some excellent schools. There is no single perfect system. Why can't we accept the benefits of diversity and encourage choice even with in the state sector so that we meet the needs of individual pupils rather than trying to push everyone through the same template.
The existence of private education can actually be financially beneficial to state schools.

State schools will never improve if, instead of funding them, government pays thousands of pounds in assisted place fees in the private sector every year. Furthermore, the bursary system does little more than improve private schools whilst depriving state schools of some of their most able pupils. Another factor is that whilst a small proportion of children do get in on academic ability with bursaries, they are a small minority of those similarly able and disadvantaged, whilst less able children from more wealthy backgrounds benefit. And children of average or lower intelligence are excluded from these institutions of small classes and more individual attention, from which they may benefit, on two counts: their ability, and their parents’ incomes. This should strike any observer as deplorably unfair and discriminating.
It creates stereotypes and tensions within society

In the melting pot that are universities a separation occurs between two classes of people from the various backgrounds them came from. Those that are state-school educated often look upon their counterparts as elitist, stuck-up and posh. Those privately educated frequently hang around with "their own kind" and - often unconsciously - do activites separate and different from the rest of the population Because of the lack of knowledge a partitioning often occurs. How can you argue that creating a two tier, immiscible separation of our society is a good thing?
children need social education

Education should not merely be academic. Children need to be exposed to different classes and types of people. This is the sort of education that will decrease the wealth gap in Britain. If the more wealthier among us were educated with the least wealthier of us, people would be less prejudiced. This would result in the least well off people being accepted into higher class jobs instead of losing out due to the interviewer being prejudiced against people who were not so eloquent, but just as articulate. This is what we need for a meritocratic society.
The existence of private education can actually be financially beneficial to state schools.

The existence of private education can actually be financially beneficial to state schools. The state funds the education system through taxation. Parents who do not send their children to state schools still pay those same taxes. Therefore, there is more money per child in the state sector. There is evidence that a large number of parents, who send there children to private schools, are both ‘first time buyers’ – i.e. neither parent attending a private school – and not from the privileged elite that the opposition would have us believe. Moreover, most schools provide bursaries for able pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the state itself used to fund such a scheme, called ‘assisted places.’ This is evidence against private schools being socially divisive.
A private education is a good education

It seems silly to propse scrapping a system of education that produces positive results and successful individuals. Private education still exists because the alternative is over-stretched, over-crowded and doesn't always provide the best all-round education. The statistics prove the success of the private school system, as they attain higher incomes over their lifetime. The proposition claim that the government could invest more resources or copy other education models, but until this happens, removing the private education system would force everyone to enter a system unfit for purpose. This would be detrimental to education as a whole in this country.
'Old School Tie' networks still exist.

Class distinction will exist regardless of schooling; it would be extremely naive to believe that these networks would dissipate if privileged children were schooled by the state. There are advantages to these networks that far outweigh egalitarian ideals. Without the established connections and name recognition that comes along with having a private education, many businesses would never be funded, deals would fail to materialize and industry would not run as smoothly. Jobs are created and value added to society based on these networks. Paraphrasing part of the opposite argument: Private Schools give students a better shot at life including education and connections. This is not a valid point. Are you arguing against the very idea of schools? Maybe it would be better if no one got an education then we'd all be pretty much equal.
Abolishing a good service on the basis that some cannot afford it is absurd

The Ferrari argument is absurd. Of course people should be able to choose what car they drive. If someone wants to spend that much money on a car that is their prerogative. However, education is a sensitive matter, especially compared to cars! Just because someone has been born into money, why should they be given an education that offers them more opportunities? Cambridge and Oxford boast that "only" 50% of their students are from public schools, but this is no achievement when the percentage of pupils attending public schools is far less than 50%. (1) (1)http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/mar/05/schools.oxbridgeandelitism
the correct way to improve the education for children in state schools is to spend more money on state schools

It is true that many of the problems facing state schools stem from within them, but the existence of the private schools outside hardly improves morale amongst staff. It is not as simple as saying we need more money to improve state schools. Since state schools’ funding comes via the government, which gets its money through taxation, then an increase in education expenditure – if it isn’t to cause cuts elsewhere – inextricably leads to higher taxes. It is the Government which makes decisions over education funding. What is more, the existence of private schools must necessarily diminish the social diversity in state schools. Thus, until private schools are banned, and more social groups are forced to take an active interest in funding issues for state schools, there will not be a sufficiently broad-based, united lobbying force to impel Government to take the action it fears now would make it unpopular and spend the necessary money. Indeed, the funding problems may more quickly be resolved if a few more prominent and powerful politicians had children in state schools.
Private schools create competition

"Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages." [Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 26.i.] Does the marketisation of education not contradict the universal right to free education? If education is important enough, it should not need to be marketised and competitive in order to progress. The marketisation of education, reinforced through institutions such as private schools, may also be having an adverse affect on the education itself. More and more teachers in both private and public education find themselves swamped with boxes that their students have to have ticked (Key stages, standardised lesson plans, SATs etc) in order to prove that their education is efficient, value for money, etc. The idea of education for its own sake is thrown out of the window. In less abstract terms, subjects that don't get enough popular support are thrown out rather than improved - it's no longer compulsory to take a language to GCSE, nor to sit an aural exam if one is taken. Competition does not mean better education, it means standardised education and teaching students to jump through hoops. As private education has much better means to do this, e.g. much smaller contact groups and excellent revision resources, state-funded education really has to pull out all the stops to keep up, including rejecting independent thought in favour of 'exam skills'. Competitive education is not a human right, it's a travesty.
'Old School Tie' networks still exist.

Once we're out of school, all we seem to consider in our arguments is which schools give the best academic results. Yet most of us believe that many other things taken away from our schooling were far more important than an academic education. Values, outlooks, and life-skills stay with us forever, whilst a set of A-levels becomes merely a certificate - especially for those of us who only use our French GCSE in restaurants. Yet what we consistently overlook when studying the league tables is the culture that is reinforced in maintaining private and state education. The social networks (extending into business, law, politics and so forth) that private schools can offer throughout life favour the life chances of their attendees a ludicrous amount. The private-state social divide is most often maintained at university, with different social groups forming around the basis of wealth and upbringing, and at some of the best academic institutions in the country, state school students who have had a harder time earning their place (statistics show this to be true) are very often made to feel inadequate and questioning their position. Whether or not the practical difficulties of reforming the education allow it to be possible, private education almost certainly 'should' be abolished for the inegalitarian social networks which they create. Arguments such as that opposite do not damage this point in any way. They rely on reductio ad absurdum tactics to portray a desire to abolish private schools, which offer unrivalled access to business networks, as a desire to abolish these networks themselves. This is simply not the case. If, as the argument opposite states, such networks and distinctions would exist 'regardless of schooling', then it would do no harm to these networks to abolish the Private Education system in the hope that we may keep both these networks AND 'egalitarian ideals': if this is not possible, then the argument opposite is self-contradictory. Even though this point does not argue for the abolition of interpersonal relations in business (only a school system that gives unfavoured access to these relations), the opposition claim that businesses, deals and employment rely upon these networks is unsubstantiated and cannot in its present form be taken seriously.
Abolishing a good service on the basis that some cannot afford it is absurd

Whilst it is true that some cannot afford to give thier children a private education this should not mean that the institutions should be abolished completely! This is equivalent to arguing that as some cannot afford Ferraris they should cease production. Of course there will always be inequality but this does not mean we should ban a good service for some on the basis that it is not available to all. Yes, perhaps we should try to make it more accesible through scholarships and bursaries etc, and perhaps one day it will be available for all, but until then it would be a step backwards to abolish private education. Communism didn't work people!
Private Schools inhibit reform of the public system

It is an inevitable feature of democracies that the rich have particular access to politicians and policy-makers. While the rich don't have a need for public education because they can pursue education for their children from other sources, they have no motivation to lobby politicians on behalf of the education system and a perverse incentive to remove education from political agendas in favour of their preferred issues and legislation. Only by forcing the rich into the same situation as the poor can we expect to gain meaningful ground in terms of education reform, especially in terms of increased funding relative to national and municipal budgets. We cannot expect education will be a national priority until the entire nation has a vested interest in the good order of the system.
the correct way to improve the education for children in state schools is to spend more money on state schools

On the disparity between private and state schools, the correct way to improve the education for children in state schools is to spend more money on state schools, devote more time, energy and enthusiasm to them. Preventing a minority from having a certain type of education is not the way to help improve the majority’s education. By and large, the complaint is that private schools are doing well and providing a good education, whilst state schools lag behind. It is in all our interests to set the standard of education as high as we can – you do this by raising state schools to the supposed standard of private schools, not by depriving children of a private education.
Private schools create competition

Having private schools means there is natural compeition in the educations sector. The government must keep the standard of a state education up to prevent the affluent middle classes from deserting state education entirely and sending their children into the private sector at a reasonable cost. If this happened with enough families, there would be growing demand to lower taxes - it would be unfair for large swathes of middle England to pay for state educations they are not using. Obviously doing this would be a political nightmare: funding would be cut dramatically, lowering the quality of state education even further. So, the government is forced to compete with the private sector in order to guarantee continued funding and the support of the middle classes.
Removing 'choice' will improve the overall standard of our schools.

On the contrary, removing choice will end up with everyone getting the same mediocre education that is available from the state. Parents that are unsatisfied with this have then no opportunity to steer their childrens´ education into the direction they would like it to be heading and it is ludacris to think they would spend as much of their own money on state schools as they would be willing to pay for a private school. Why? Because if the school is statefunded it is a human attitude to expect the state to provide the money to improve it. Britain might even lose schoolchildren as well as qualified teachers looking for a challenging experience to other countries and their boarding schools.
Private schools aren't necessarily good for the child.

The pressure on private schools to take and provide for students of less priviledged backgrounds means the students are increasingly diverse. Private schools are institutionalised, but this need not necessarily be a bad thing. Many opportuinities are avaliable through a private education which a state school will not provide, sport, music etc. Exploring beyond the curriculum is a key part of the ethos and can help expand student's minds. The centralisation of the exam process means that the curriculum has little chance of being abused.
In a civilised society, there should be plenty of choice

Choice doesn't have to be between a state and a private school; an effective choice can exist between neighbouring state schools. Schools often now specialise in certain areas - sport, technology and so on - and so provide a choice for parents and students alike as to where a young person receives their education. what sort of choice do people from council estates have whether they can go to a private school or state run? It's choice for the rich, not for anyone else.
Education should create equal opportunities for all

To rebut the points made by the proposition, universities were in the past claimed to discriminate. This now does not happen: Oxbridge chooses students solely on the grounds of academic merit and gives ample assistance to those who would not normally be able to attend university. Businesses choose on merit alone as well, and we make our own social opportunities by how we each live our lives. The (unquoted) statistics that the proposition claim "prove time and time again" their point do not in any way prove it; what the prove is the benefits of the private system and the failures of the state system to educate our children. If state education is to be improved, the government must improve it: abolishing private education will not improve the standards of state education. Remember, those who attend private schools pay twice: they pay for the state system through taxation and private school fees. The amount of money available to state education, currently woefully low, cannot increase unless the government increases it. Therefore, abolishing independent education would not create equal opportunities for all that were of benefit: it would create equal, poor opportunities.
In a civilised society, there should be plenty of choice

Just as we have the right choose whether or not to buy organic or eat really fatty foods, or buy a ridiculously expensive car , we also have the right to choose a good education for our children, whether or not this is a choice that everyboy has. It is unreasonable to expect everybody to have to send their children to a state school that they feel is unsuitable, rather than a better resourced, better run private school simply because there are others unfortunate enough not to be able to have this choice.
Move forward and do what is best for the majority

If the 'majority' chooses not to work as hard or as long as the majority of private school parents, then those who do hold down a good job that pays well should not be penalised for giving their child a better education. In fact, abolishing private education would not lead to a mass benefit to the state school system: it would simply over burden the creaking state schools and lead to large unemployment of teachers, janitors and cleaners who currently work at private schools. The majority would not benefit from the abolition of private education: think about Winston Churchill, for example, who is regarded as one of the best prime ministers Britain has ever had. Where would Britain be without his leadership skills and military bravery, without his background in an aristocratic family and his private education? Also, the richest private schools do not get better at the expense of the nation: they get better at the expense of the parents who pay both tax to fund the state school system and the private education system, and the state school system in Britain is failing its pupils already, and we should not fail the rest of those pupils who are currently in private education just because of politics.
Parents who want to send their children to a fee-paying school are making a decision based on what is best for their children.

Private schools do not provide all parents with an alternative – only those who can afford it. Such schools perpetuate social inequality, as a better education tends to lead to a better-paid job, which in turn enables one to send one’s own children to such a school. Consequently, equal opportunities are denied to the children of poorer families. With the patronage of wealthier parents, private schools attract resources far higher than state schools. Moreover, with the (often academically selected) children from more affluent backgrounds, greater resources and smaller classes, these schools are unsurprisingly more attractive to teachers than state schools. We have a situation where state schools are potentially deprived not only of able pupils, but also very able teachers, thus compounding the inequalities. Such a state of affairs is socially divisive, and must be avoided.
The child will feel un-loved and un-wanted

The affection and devotion applied to an individual varies based on the character and morals of a parent, and is not dictated by the schooling of a child. The idea of doing a job for the sole purpose of monetary gains is in no way only applied to children from private schools. If you assume that those enrolled in private schools place a large focus on money due to maintaining their own lifestyle, we can also assume those in public school choose a career for money, as they realize the importance and value of money, and know the opportunities that money both provides and limits. In a day and age where we are surrounded by blinking lights and the development of technology we would have never imagined 20 years ago, let alone materialized, the education in private schools is not nearly overwhelming.
Education should create equal opportunities for all

Statistics prove time and time again that those individuals with a private education background have more education, job and social opportunities than those who were educated by the state. The ratio of private school pupils entering the most prestigious universities is substantially high considering the fraction of children who are educated privately; to the extent where these universities have been accused of discrimination. It isn't fair that just because some parents cannot afford to pay for their children's education that those children should be disadvantaged on account of that alone. Education is supposed to open doors, not shut them. Furthermore, private school creates a segregation between children and young adults in society, which can result in bullying in some cases. If we want our children to treat everyone in society as an equal, we must all start on an equal footing. Oxbridge doesn't pick on academic standards, what a farce! 99.9% of applicants have got straight As and A*s, of which a tiny proportion are picked. There are interviews and 'certain' applicants fit the role. These are usually non-state educated individuals. Also Oxbridge colleges actually have a quota for the amount of state school students they take in. The more they take, the more funding they get. (not sure which side that point lies on but I wrote the first bit too so...)
So send your child to a Grammar School

The bottom line is, one's prospects in life do not significantly differ by having had private education, rather than a comprehensive or gramar education. I am a student at the University of Durham, where a significant proportion of undergraduate students have come from 'Public School' backgrounds. There are also a lot of students who have attended both grammar schools and comprehensive schools. My argument is that all of these students have progressed successfully through their schooling, regardless of which type, and have arrived at Durham having been accepted on to a degree programme. The type of secondary education which one has had makes absolutely no difference. All students have arrived and are in the same position and are ALL equal!