The Public Schools Commission: 'Impractical, Expensive and Harmful to Children'?

In the mid-1960s, the Labour government established a Commission to devise the best way of integrating Britain's elite independent schools with the state-financed school system. Despite-and because of-the left's scepticism of private education, the Commission faced enormous obstacles and their solution of state-subsidised boarding places was seen as unworkable, unaffordable and unpopular. Government papers help to explain the various reasons why the Commission's proposals were not implemented: in particular, the public schools were regarded as a low spending priority. The lack of reform is key to understanding the continuing importance of independent schools in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]