FEW things do a child more disservice than private schooling.

Money might buy your child an extra Higher, perhaps two, but it can't buy them a proper education.

Religious studies pales next to classmates of varying creeds, sociology next to a room full of peers from motley backgrounds.

Jim Murphy MP has wagged a half-hearted finger at private schools as part of his Labour leadership bid. Private schools will be made to do more to help state schools, should Mr Murphy become First Minister.

He believes private schools are doing the "minimum necessary" to earn lucrative tax breaks and has called for them to "do the right thing" by sharing their resources with local communities.

This is the same Jim Murphy whose children are educated in East Renfrewshire, where middle-class parents pay over the odds for property to shore up an exclusive little enclave around the "best" schools. His son attends a primary school where 3% of children - against an average of 22% - are eligible for free school meals. Parents have been caught out using relative's addresses and renting empty flats to squirrel their children into the "right" primaries.

The think tank Reform Scotland has made the point that it can be cheaper for parents to pay for private education rather than a postcode and it was Mr Murphy's postcode they pointed to.

But you don't hear Mr Murphy criticising this behaviour, for this would be to scold a swathe of his constituents.

Anas Sarwar, interim leader of Scottish Labour, criticised "an education system that appears to perpetuate inequality, where social mobility is a vision lost in the past," having waved his son off that morning to his private school.

Supporters point to the exam success of private schools. The success of private schools is based on selection and you can't replicate selection on a mass scale or you'd have a heck of a lot of uneducated children. Children are tested before entry while bursary pupils are selected from the academic cream of the state school crop.

It has been shown repeatedly that state educated pupils outperform their privately educated peers at university level. These "better" schools have a cohort that is easier to teach and parents to support them.

What parents who opt into the private system are paying up to £30,000 a year for is the perpetuation of a privileged elite that dominates several sectors of the British establishment, from the courts to politics and the media - nothing more.

Of course, parents want to do what is best for their children. They want to protect them from the rougher edges of life, they want to ensure their academic success. A vote for a private education is a vote of no confidence in your child. It says you fear they won't succeed without ample cushioning around them.

But that's not really the issue. The private/state debate is really a debate about personal interests vs the good of society. It is morally wrong to segregate children based on the financial status of their parents, whether that's going private or postcode hopping.

Society as a whole benefits from the standards at state schools being raised: better educated, better adjusted children used to mixing with all creeds, colours and classes.

State schools will never fully flourish until everyone is invested in making sure that they do, where there are applied, dedicated parents who would put their foot down against decline.

Finland, in the 1960s, had an education system that was unequal. The country decided it would take radical steps to provide free, high quality education to every child: no matter gender, background or socio-economic status, every child has the chance to reach their full potential.

For the past 10 years, the country has performed consistently among the top nations on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Finland built its excellent education system from scratch, with the guiding concept of reforms being equity. Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland and none are allowed to charge tuition fees.

By focusing on the bigger picture, the country has improved the chances for every individual.

Mr Murphy and Mr Sarwar want to raise education attainment. To do so, bold steps are needed. They can start by scrapping the sophisticated social networking systems of a selfish elite.