[Niklas Smith]
Recently the Conservative leader David Cameron went back to school – but not to Eton. Instead he visited Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, London, to launch his party’s new schools policy. Its central plank is to allow parents and charities to open more schools like Mossbourne. This is intended to give parents and children more choice, and improve standards by competition.
This seems like a breath of fresh air after a decade of centralisation and growing bureaucracy. The National Curriculum has grown to fill the entire teaching time of most state schools. The government grants to local authorities that provide most of the funding for schools are shot through with restrictions on how that money is spent, meaning that education budgets are largely decided in Whitehall. Ministers have micromanaged everything from classroom layouts to teaching methods. At the same time, they have been much slower to allow parents to choose their children’s schools freely. And, despite a funding splurge, standards have barely improved.
Other countries, such as Sweden (which Mr Cameron mentioned), have introduced school vouchers. These allow parents and pupils to choose whichever non-fee paying school they want, and for the money to follow the pupil. This allows children to go to so-called “free schools” outside their catchment area. In Britain, however, this freedom has been largely reserved for those with parents who can afford to pay fees, or believe in a specific religion.
School choice recognises children’s individuality and allows them to go to the school that is best for them. Also, as Mr Cameron has understood, it means that schools have to compete for pupils, rather than having a captive source in their catchment area. Competition will make schools better. Just think what prices your local supermarket would charge you (and what the quality of the food would be) if you weren’t allowed to shop anywhere else.
Those who oppose choice sometimes argue that only a minority of “pushy” middle-class parents will understand the system. It is claimed that they will be able to choose the best schools, leaving the worst for poor children, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Nor is it true that bright children will all choose the same schools, leaving weaker pupils behind to struggle without having clever children in their classroom. A Swedish study found that ‘free schools’ improved all children’s results in the areas where they were set up. So not only did their own pupils do better, but so too did the pupils who stayed behind in municipal schools. Competition made the existing schools work harder.
The trouble is that Mr Cameron hasn’t fully understood the nature of choice. Far from getting rid of Whitehall micromanagement, he wants to control schools even more. Pupils are to wear blazers, be grouped by ability and be taught to read using synthetic phonics. Mr Cameron’s policy is in danger of becoming a Hobson’s choice – parents will have a choice, but only between schools that teach the same curriculum in the same way.
If all children are to get an excellent education then MPs and ministers need to learn to let go. They need to recognise that one size does not fit all, and that schools should be allowed to be different. Pupils are individuals, and experimentation is the only way to improve. The National Curriculum should be slimmed down to allow schools to set their own timetables, and unnecessary regulations should be binned so that schools can decide how to teach. Local authorities should be free to run their schools the way their residents want. They should be able to set their own budgets rather than relying on government grants that come with strings attached. Last but not least, pupils should have a school voucher that allows them to go to any tax-funded school they want, whether it’s run independently or by the local authority.
The role of central government is to specify the ends, not the means. The government should insist that all children should be able to read, write and do sums before they leave primary school, but not tell schools how to teach them. Rather than trying to run schools by remote control, the emphasis should be on fixing the exam system and on improving teacher training. When will politicians learn that, sometimes, the best thing they can do is to let go of some of their power?
