Mamdani panic leaves wealthy NYC parents rushing to get kids into top British boarding schools: ‘We want to get out’

When Zohran Mamdani won New York’s mayoral election last November, Caven Wagstaff’s phone wouldn’t stop ringing for weeks.

Wagstaff runs his own firm, wrangling places for wealthy American families keen to land their kids a perch at tony British private schools.

“It doubled,” he says now, of the 10 families per week who hit him up for his Anglo-friendly expertise.

A couple of years ago, the twentysomething former teacher spotted the surging interest in overseas applications to British private schools — they call them public, as opposed to state-run — and set up his firm, CJE Consultancy.

Demand has always been strong, Wagstaff explained — American students have long flocked to the UK for higher education. Around 20% of the undergrads at St Andrews, where Prince William and Kate Middleton are alumni, are now from America.

As one parent put it on an online forum on the topic: “Children finishing school (K-12) in Britain are functional adults. It takes another 4 years of college or 2 years of trade school for Americans to come close.”

Now, however, he said, interest is starting much earlier — sometimes as early as middle school. That matches up with a report from the Independent Schools Council in the UK, which said American student numbers at that level jumped 8% in the year ending last January.

Half of Wagstaff’s business comes from the US — and that’s almost entirely comprised of families from the Tri-State area, largely due to the changing of the political winds in the New York City area, he said.

One of the greatest tragedies of governance in the United States during the second half of the 20th century was allowing the destruction of public education by the left. Looking back it is clear the left purposefully infiltrated and took control of public education by the 1980’s, and has succeeded in its efforts to destroy the curriculum, eliminate standards, and lower every student to the lowest common denominator. Most insidious was turning schools into indoctrination centers where students at a young impressionable age were taught to hate their history and love for liberty. In the 21st century this indoctrination has become obscene by promoting a gender identity agenda of mental illness and mutilation of the body.

Wealthy parents soon observed the precipitous decline in eduction standards. They used their money to buy seats for their children in private schools while they continued to elect the leftist politicians who were supporting the destruction of public education. For a time the private schools continued to maintain high standards and provide quality instruction. Ultimately though, those schools were captured by the leftist education establishment and the propaganda/indoctrination mission gained priority over mastery of life skills.

The MAGA movement has yet to address the destruction of the US education system with an aggressive plan to return to the education system its mission of giving students the fundamental skills needed to be successful in life. Unless education returns to a focus on the mastery of fundamental reading, writing, math, and science skills, as well as a celebration of the great things American has achieved since the revolution and an appreciation for our system of governance, the nation is doomed.

Arguably, reform of the education system at home is more critical to the survival of the republic than continuing to spend trillions on wars in the Middle East.

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