Leave those schools alone
Matthew d'Ancona 12:13pm
Is there anything more depressing in an age of prosperity, choice and freedom than the spectacle of an old fashioned public sector rationing system doing its bleak work? The criticisms levelled by Jim Knight, the schools minister, at the best schools over the implementation of the statutory admissions code are a horrible revival of the language of a bygone era when public goods were controlled by rigorously enforced queuing. And, in keeping with Fraser’s warnings, this is another example of the Brown government undoing the public service reforms of the Blair years (such as they were).
The decision to make the admissions code statutory rather than advisory was a sop to the Left during the trust schools controversy. Now we have a Government that actually believes in the central regulation of school places and the crushing of diversity. Mr Knight says in his letter to town halls:
"I am very concerned that formal complaints and other anecdotal evidence suggest that some local authorities and schools are not complying with the law. No ifs or buts - there is absolutely no excuse not to comply with the law to stamp out unfair and covert admission practices, which penalise low-income families and increase social segregation.”
The “covert admission practices” he refers to include such supposed horrors as parental interviews, allegedly expensive uniforms or daring to ask parents which order of preference they have placed schools in. This is a Government that talks about “aspiration” and the “personalisation” of services but still prefers the pseudo-egalitarian gesture and the Whitehall diktat. It is amazing that, as the PM heads off to China and India, where he will doubtless talk at length about the new challenges of the global economy and the need to prepare young Britons for an era of unprecedented economic competition, his ministers are using the language of the 1960s. Tony Crosland would agree with every word that Mr Knight used.
All the evidence from around the world shows that schools prosper when they are left alone and struggle when they are subjected to the dead hand of the state. Cameron and Gove get this. Brown doesn’t. That’s the difference.
Previous
Paddy
January 17th, 2008 12:41pm Report this commentOh no! You've brought in the same hideous "click to read more" links that some other blogs have. Maybe I'm alone in this, but a "click to read more" link makes it less likely that I will bother clicking and thus you will have to "sell" the story in the first para, reducing the careful construction and good writing element of the job. It's why I gave up on the Telegraph blogs. You should only continue the story on a separate page if it is a massive one; anything under five paragraphs really should be kept on the front page. Please reconsider!
Perry
January 17th, 2008 1:11pm Report this commentWell, . . . control freakery in edyercashun - as in any other sphere - will (spr)out whenever an opportunity presents itself – or the ‘nvoirermint’ is roight.
EyeSee
January 17th, 2008 1:42pm Report this commentOur local school served us as parents and our children, by informing us that if we opted for a Grammer as first choice, they would not allow us to go there if we were unsuccesful. They had to be our first 'choice'. This from a campus that offered no (none at all) facility for those with their own food, to eat.
Jon
January 17th, 2008 2:52pm Report this commentDo you really think this is so wrong? At the moment, we have a spectrum of schools, from the bad to the worst. Only a limited number of children can get into the better schools, so there has to be some way to ration them out. Simply allowing the good schools to pick all the best children has two effects – it creates sink schools down at the bottom, and it damages social mobility – especially if the way in which schools pick pupils is through distance. Surely, as a meritocrat and a believer of equal opportunity, there has to be a right wing case for supporting equal chances by all children to get into these schools?
Fergus Pickering
January 17th, 2008 4:19pm Report this commentThe reason the schools are good is because they are filled with middle class pupils. If you fill them with - what do we call them - the non-middle class pupils with non-middle class ideals (wanting to be football players or just famous) then they will cease to be good schools. Oxford University has a fine set of libraries but, above all, it has a brainy student body. If you ship in the less brainy then it becomes less good. Got it?
TGF UKIP
January 17th, 2008 7:26pm Report this comment"Cameron and Gove get this." Do they really - I don't recall either of them saying explicitly that schools will have absolute freedom over their admission policy. As usual there's been a lot of hedging and trimming with Blue Labour ending up very close to New Labour. The Big Issue though is the sink kids of the underclass and it's an issue that goes way further than a conventional education one. P.S. totally agree with Paddy on the new format.
Punishment of Luxury
January 17th, 2008 9:32pm Report this commentI'm going through whole North LDN school thing at the moment & the process leaves a very nasty taste. These schools are not charities, they are business Oxfam is a charity not Highgate school. As a free market capitalist what other commercial transaction would I allow the supplier to choose the customer, this goes against all my principles would you let your car dealer choose you no, so why should the school choose my kids after all I'm paying . These schools have all the power & don't they show I have never come across a more rude & arrogant bunch of people than admissions administrators at these North LDN schools & what makes it worse we have to kow tow to them for the sake of the kids. My money buy's me a better house, a better car, better healthcare, better food no questions asked why not a better school? Let the market decide & allow the schools to set the fees at a level that the market will bear why should It have anything to do with the intelligence of my kids they provide a service nothing else. The fees will end up being more expensive in LDN & cheaper elsewhere just likes houses & tell me as good free marketers what's wrong with that. The market does best in virtually every other sphere of my life why not the education of my kids & at least the schools would know who was the customer in this transaction.
James Dunlop
January 17th, 2008 10:09pm Report this commentLabour's key problem is that it regards the supply of 'good' school places as fixed, and thus sees admissions policy as an allocational zero sum game. The reality is that choice in education spurs improvements in supply; the game is thus non-zero sum. Adonis & Blair eventually understood the issues. Brown's underlying world-view prevents him from seeing this clearly.
Trumpeter Lanfried
January 17th, 2008 11:12pm Report this commentNever mind admission policies; the Government has no business to be running schools and is not competent to do so. You may say, "Education is a basic right, which should be freely available to all." I agree. But that doesn't mean the government should run the schools. After all, food and drink are basic rights, which should be freely available to all but we still have to pay for them and no-one suggests the Government should take over Sainsburys.
Nicholas Millman
January 18th, 2008 8:02am Report this commentWe wouldn't have this problem if Labour hadn't interfered with a perfectly good system decades ago. They have ruined education in this country. As with most of the Labour change agenda it is implemented in haste and repented at leisure. Social engineering is a contradiction in terms but New Labour have been at it since coming to power and most of the problems in this country can be traced to it.
Fergus Pickering
January 18th, 2008 10:22am Report this commentPunishment of Luxury, when demand outstrips supply then, classically, the price goes up. If it does not, then rationing comes in. I wouldn't know, bt if youn want a Morgan sports car I'll bet you have to wait many months to get one. In this case the rationing is done by the seller choosing the buyer. If he doesn't like the cut of your jib, then heard luck. All very irritating, no doubt, but perfectly in accord with the free market. The important word is free, you see. The seller is free to sell wherever he likes; the buyer is free to go elsewhere. In your case there isn't an elsewhere and that's unfortunate for you. As I said in another post, I wouldn't send my children to a public school if I could help it because I think the places are bastions of snobbery. And since I am in an area with grammar schools and my girls were clever enough to passs the test I didn't have to.
Punishment of Luxury
January 18th, 2008 12:05pm Report this commentFergus I do agree with you mostly & I was being deliberately proactive but I still don't see what is wrong with allowing the price of school fees to float & to find a price that the market will bear, good schools in popular areas would cost more & others less & the market would regulate the price. As a true believer in free markets I have no issue with that I think what really irritates me is all this charity guff in my experience these schools are really businesses & we should free them too be truly so. Fingers crossed that my daughter will get a place in the school she wants I will cheer but just be glad the whole sordid process is over. By the way I'm sure I could have a new Morgan by next week If I was willing to pay the price from someone at the top of the queue.
The Laughing Cavalier
January 18th, 2008 1:01pm Report this commentWhat is it that Brown and Balls have against excellence? Why do they try to dumb every school down to the lowest common denominator? Both of them benefitted from the sort of excellence in education that they should be striving to offer every child yet they seem determined to ensure that the generations following them do not have the same opportunity.
Fergus Pickering
January 18th, 2008 2:26pm Report this commentPunishment if Luxury, I sincerely hope your daughter makes the cut. I paid £165 to a trck cyclist to show my elder daughter was dyslexic. Dyspraxic it turned out and she got in anyway but the piece of paper was of inestimable good for the next nine years, giving her extra time in exams, expert tuition from peripatetic teachers, and a free computer too. All of which was fine in my book, but then I would say that, wouldn't I? Charities don't have to do good; they just have to be non-profit-making. You could have a charity casino or a charity brothel as long as it didn't make profits. I had a boss years ago who thought of turning his tutorial college into a charity until he found that would mean he could no longer take out handfuls of money from the office safe when he felt inclined. Re the Morgan, I expect you're right.
Punishment of Luxury
January 18th, 2008 6:11pm Report this commentFergus Wow thanks for that I'm sure she will be fine. People being nice to each other on a Speccie blog that's a first. Like you I have child who is dyslexic she is smart as a whip but struggles with reading & writing & I do worry about in this cut throat London private school system. At the moment she is at a specialised school & all I had to do get her in was to pay the eye watering fees. I still remain unconvinced that these schools are charities in the commonly excepted meaning of the word they take your money & provide a service that's a business. If it walks like a duck & quacks It's a duck. Have a good one.
Back to top