Nelson's column

Fraser Nelson gets it.

His Spectator column this week is an excellent survey of the Tory policy leap that has been lost in the debate about grammar schools:

The system Mr Willetts seems to be proposing could become a more potent force for social mobility than a reimposition of grammar schools ever could.

Mr Cameron appears inclined toward a version of the voucher system that transformed Swedish education when it was introduced in 1992. The dynamics are as simple as they are powerful. Any qualified teachers can set up a school, as long as they prove there is a demand and meet minimum standards. The state pays them a fixed amount per pupil: about £5,000 per year. State education would be open to any school, or community, that wanted to participate. And that’s it.

He continues:

In Mr Blair’s system, new schools can only open once they have a found a sponsor willing to part with £2 million in areas that fit ‘deprivation criteria’. Academies usually replace failed schools, thus adding nothing to the number of schools. Negotiations often take two years. And if the organisers want to open a second school, they must start this whole process from the beginning — and run the dispiriting gauntlet of the LEAs yet again

Mr Willetts is proposing to correct each of these defects. There would be no sponsorship criteria, new schools could open wherever there is a demand, and multiple school licences would be granted. Mr Cameron said on Monday he would ensure the ‘LEAs cannot strangle new schools at birth’. Mr Willetts envisages a large number of smaller, boutique schools rather than a new Grange Hill with a cast of hundreds in every neighbourhood.

Or we could continue arguing about a half a dozen selective schools in Kent.

Comments

[Recusant]

And Polly Toynbee couldn't possibly criticise it as it comes from that Utopia, that Shining City on a Hill, Sweden; which she constantly informs us gets everything right.

[David Moss]

This sounds a lot more like a Conservative education policy. Is it the work of the education policy committee whose findings, it is alleged, were ignored last week?

Whatever the source, correct me if I am wrong, it is nothing like what Mr Willetts said to the CBI on 16 May. If I am right, then this is not the policy that Mr Willetts or Mr Cameron or Mr Hilton wanted. It is a different policy.

It is no good getting the political editor (I think) of the Spectator magazine to announce a U-turn for him. Mr Cameron has accused the people who would like to be his supporters of being delusional and of wasting his time with pointless argument. It now appears that the argument was not pointless and we were not delusional so perhaps he could now find the time to speak to us himself.

Something has got to lance the boil of suspicion [1]. Suspicion of Mr Cameron, that is. And something has got to rebuild his credibility.

It ill behoves you to say, tetchily, "… or we could continue arguing about a half a dozen selective schools in Kent" as though Conservative supporters all got out of bed the wrong side last Wednesday. That tetchiness does not help to lance the boil or rebuild credibility. As I remember it [2], someone else started this fight, quite unnecessarily, with a "product launch" which will be studied for years to discover how not to do it.

1. http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2007/05/todays_web_grab_14.html#comments
2. http://dematerialisedid.com/BCSL/Hilton.html

[Tom]

Fraser recently married a lovely lady from Sweden. Not that this has anything to do with it...