Why would a parent want to set up their own school? Aren’t exhausted parents busy enough without doing the job of the state as well? This has become the latest line of attack on the Conservatives’ radical proposals for school reform, launched this week.
Why would a parent want to set up their own school? Aren’t exhausted parents busy enough without doing the job of the state as well? This has become the latest line of attack on the Conservatives’ radical proposals for school reform, launched this week. The media seems obsessed with this canard — perhaps after decades of central control, the concept of liberalisation is hard for them to grasp — but communicating it clearly must now become a priority for the government.
The schools reform proposals which Michael Gove and David Laws devised in opposition do indeed allow parents to set up a school, but, more importantly, they allow for new companies, including teacher groups, to start them. And new schools are no threat to any decent existing school: they’ll only be in demand where discontent with existing schools is the highest, where children most urgently need help. The unions say that parents don’t want such schools: if this is the case, none will appear. This is the beauty of the proposed system.
The reform’s main objective is to remove the obstacles that prevent worried parents joining forces with education experts; to take down the barriers between school providers and parents interested in their services. Whether the reforms succeed or not depends on what happens in the next few weeks. If Mr Gove’s bill is made law this summer, then the first of these new ‘free schools’ will begin recruiting pupils and staff this autumn and open next year.
If the legislation is properly drafted, and survives sabotage attempts in the Commons and the Lords, the schools could multiply throughout that year and thousands of pupils who have been abandoned to a sink-school education could be thrown a lifeline. Within two years, tens of thousands of children could be far better off. The trajectory of success is truly dazzling.
But there will be no schools revolution if the bill is poorly drafted and leaves providers vulnerable to the wrecking attempts of local authorities or European Union directives. If new schools need the ‘approval’ of local authorities (as the Lib Dem manifesto suggested), then the project will be strangled at birth. There will, of course, be resistance to ‘free schools’; councils — whether Labour or Tory — hate the idea of losing their monopoly control over state education. If there is the slightest ambiguity in the Gove legislation, it will be exploited to the full.
The schools will be able to profit, and this is no bad thing. A profit motive means providers will grow and an education industry will be incubated. But what’s crucial is how they are allowed to make money. The Liberal Democrats’ pupil premium means the poor pupils will be most profitable to teach, so schools providers will rush for the high-yielding council estates: precisely where school choice is needed the most. But if they take their profit as a ‘consultancy’ or ‘management’ fee they could fall foul of the EU procurement directives and have to face open competition to run their own schools. This could fatally undermine the project.
When Keith Joseph tried the free schools agenda as Tory secretary 30 years ago, he was scuppered by civil servants who presented so many problems that he grew disheartened. Mr Gove will face an equally fretful Civil Service — one programmed to prefer a planned education system where bureaucrats decide which pupils to send to which schools. School liberalisation is unpredictable: a prospect which is either thrilling or terrifying, depending on whether you are a parent or a civil servant.
Yes, our own Toby Young hopes to set up a school. But he will likely be outnumbered by the Swedish education chains and — God willing — start-up British education companies who may take our expertise to the world. After Mr Gove passes his bill, there will still be much to do: teachers need the power to maintain order without being sued; headmasters must have the power to sack bad teachers; and the bureaucratic control of A-levels must end. But his most important job by far is to protect this bill as it makes its way through parliament.
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