Excellent new schools and more choice for parents. How easily could these really happen under a Tory government?

Michael Gove's keynote speech today was, like the Conservatives' education policy in general, a remarkable mixture of traditional and modern Tory ideology. When it comes to schools, it's all to do with choice, decentralisation and the market - but with a huge emphasis on the community and helping the really disadvantaged. I'm pretty sure Tony Blair would be proud.

Coming on top of Chris Woodhead's astonishing mea culpa yesterday, the speech shows how the education battleground is currently a most interesting place to be. And with the SATS results out tomorrow (or at least, the SATS results that we have, and trust to be accurate), it may well continue to be the summer of schools.

And schools are something about which Gove has an awful lot to say. One of the keys to the Conservatives' education policy, and one he reiterated today, is the idea that parents should be able to choose what school to send their children to. They would be given the money allocated to their child's education as a kind of "quasi-voucher" (as John Bangs, head of education for the NUT delightfully puts it).

Parents will then be able to choose the school they want simply by taking this money and using it in "accordance with their priorities." What could be better? And in an added, caring twist, children from more disadvantaged backgrounds will receive a higher premium.

I don't like to be cynical, especially as Gove is definitely pressing all the right buttons to attract parents, but I have to admit that I am, at least a little. I certainly foresee some problems. After all, those great schools are still going to be impossible to get into. And it's still not clear who is going to build the fantastic new establishments which will help everyone else (particularly those in problematic areas, where the children deserve better).

There is an excellent state school within walking distance of our house. Our daughter didn't get in there (we live ten minutes walk away, much too far), even though the school has recently become two-form entry. I don't think they'd care if I told them that I had my daughter's educational allocation to give them, so would they please let her in. This is because I would still be up against all the other parents who wanted their children to go there, and lived nearer. In other words, I'd be in the same position I'm in now. The school would have to decide who they should and shouldn't let in. Are we suggesting that they don't do this on a geographic basis? Perhaps they should use a ballot. Either way, parents won't be guaranteed a place whether they're holding the money or not.

Gove also suggests using the "community" to set up good schools where there aren't any. New providers will be "explicitly incentivised to locate in areas of greater disadvantage." Again, this is a fine plan, but I'd be interested to know the detail and how it will work in practice. For one thing, it needs to involve local parents, and particularly in the disadvantaged areas he's talking about, many of these will be single mothers without much free time on their hands to set up a new school. Like most of us, they may also lack the expertise and knowledge needed, while the incentives may not actually be enough to persuade others to set up a new establishment in the area. However much we value community and also herald the market, common sense may well kick in here. More money is not always the answer.

Schools, of course, also take a long time to build. They then need to be staffed. Will the staff in these new schools also be paid more, so that the children have better teachers to help them through? And will this continue if they become successful?

I don't want to be cynical, as it's definitely time for some brave ideas to be brought into education. Sometimes it seems like a kind of depressing vicious circle, with good schools doing well and bad schools getting steadily worse. I'm very open to ideas. I'd just like to believe that they'll work.

Read Daniel Finkelstein's thoughts on Michael Gove's speech at Comment Central.

Comments

[delilah]

Snuffy and Brett neatly summarise the laziness and arrogance that have undermined the dream of free universal secondary schooling by denying the importance of parental involvement in schools (which, by the way, does not simply mean the right to choose a school and then sit back). Failing middle and high schools in Maryland and DC ALL complain that parents have 'given up on their kids', and attribute their failure (including the lack of infrastructure) to the impossible task of compensating for absent, working, or drug addicted parents. Conversely, teachers in successful schools ALL complain about having to deal with over-zealous parents. Parents from ethnic minorities are more likely to be excluded from involvement at the school by the arrogance of teachers like Brett, or the hopelessness of parents like Snuffy, with predictable results in academics. But not always. Recently at my state school in rural Maryland, a Russian immigrant insisted in broken English, that all his very bright children be enrolled for special (ie learning disabled) education because (hitting the table with his fist)"My children are SPECIAL!" Needless to say the children - and the school - are doing very well.

[Caroline]

The big problem with building new schools - and even with the expansion of existing ones - are English planning rules. Although my daughter's voluntary aided school was built on the grounds of a large estate (i.e. with ample space), it was a hellish and long battle to obtain planning permission. As it is, the school is under draconian restrictions. There can be no after-school or holiday clubs, lest the neighbours be inconvenienced by the traffic. I shudder to think what would happen if the school ever tried to expand.

I have lived in four other countries in Europe and North America, and never have I heard of restrictions being placed on schools due to complaints from the neighbours. This is insane and immensely short-sighted on the part of the neighbours: A good school in the neighbourhood does wonders for property values!

[Brett]

I'm a high school teacher in rural Virginia and went to public school in rural Delaware. I agree with Snuffy. If you've never worked at a school, you really have NO idea what goes on there. Parents have every right to know that their kids are getting taught correctly, but like Snuffy, I wouldn't presume to act the authority on, say, a cattle ranch. I don't know anything about cows! This same debate is constant in America. Parents think they know what's best for their kids and everyone else's too. One thing that's also very touchy is the racial element. After the "white flight" to the suburbs in the USA in the '50s/'60s/'70s, a large percentage of inner city kids are ethnic minorities living below the poverty line. In US cities, and I suspect UK cities as well, the parents who have money will make sure their kids get to go to the best or newest schools. Meanwhile, ethnic minorities are left to languish in schools lacking ventilation, roofing, adequate food, desks, and containing mold/mildew and falling ceiling tiles. That's just what I've seen at my RURAL school, which lands in the "mid-range" as far as school maintenance goes. Our rich conservatives scream that the grand answer is SCHOOL CHOICE! But we already have it by default. They pay a fee and send their kids to a different county or nearby town (to a newer public school) or private school to be educated. But what does that do to the less affluent child? In US cities, it means that the ethnic minorities who can't afford to leave the city to attend posh private or public schools get stuck with the gangs and the awful school maintenance. I fear that if the Tories get their way, "school choice" will take on the same unspoken and unwritten, but very clear undertone it takes in this country: Separate white/rich kids from those "beneath" them. We need to fix our public education system and so does the UK. But don't give in to richies who want to keep the social strata propped up.

[Schlomo]

Ollie Letvin, I don't know how many children Michael Gove has, but I know for a fact he has a child at a well-regarded Church of England primary school in West London, the same school where David Cameron's young daughter will start in September, so at least some of the Torys practice what they preach.

[Gary Smith]

In Britain, NHS and comprehensive schools are religion. Any one who disagrees the way they function and poor services they provide is an infidel.

I was a governor of schools for many years and like the NHS doctors and nurses, the teachers thought that we the public should be lucky that they provide services. Choices of any kind is resented in both NHS and education.

I save money by not eating out, not taking expensive overseas holidays and not driving a car and use the money saved for my medical insurance. It has saved the lives of my family when the NHS doctors and consultants sent us away on occassions thinking that our illnesses were minor.

The comprehensives have failed. A large proportion of kids come out from primaries with no grasp of 3 Rs and from secondary very ill-educated. People should be able to choose. If education or heath service becomes two tier, it is for the lower tier to improve and not the upper tier to dumb down.

I had a colleague from Tyne, a true red Labourite and considered private medical insurance morally repugnant and private schools a sign of decadence. Yet when it came to sharing for example a networked printer in our office, she wanted her own. She had a four wheel drive and owned two horses and enjoyed cross country ride. Yet she resented my small investment in private medical insurance!

I am British, and I feel that we have to grow up from the days of Nye Bevan. Health and education in this country need drastic changes. We should have health service like the French and the education like the Europeans have. Additionally, we should build choices in these services. We deserve no less.

[Ollie Letvin]

So if the Tories are going to produce superb schools can we have a promise that they will send their children to these same State Schools rather than Eton, Harrow and Winchester? Which school does Mr Gove send his kids to? In fact if more Tory M.P.'s did this fewer of them could use it as an excuse for fiddling their expenses.

[bill basing]

Having taught in a good Grammar School the advantage was that we ha entrants who aspired to get O and A Levels and entry to the Universities. We were also able to kick out disruptive pupils and redirect them to the local Secondary Modern. I think it was the parents whose kids were in danger of going to the Secondary Modern Schools who forced the Tories into abolishing Grammar Schools.

[G P S]

As an immigrant from a country where schools select on ability, academic not financial, and a place at a top instution was open to any, though not all, that met its standards, I find the UK's education policy bizarre. I am proud to say my friends ranged from wards of the church to the sons of captains of industry. Many are still my friends 25 years later and all are still my "brothers". Some of us traveled over 15 miles by public transport each day to our chance of a first class education.

My own Alma Mater offered boys, many who had no other route to a university education, access to grants and scholarships and facilitated movement from abject poverty to riches. A Roman Catholic high school, it took boys of the faith, a minority, and many of no faith. It has produced, many now serving this country as doctors in the NHS or as sportsmen, John Barnes, some fine human beings.

Let schools choose, the brightest and the best, and offer them an environment to be the best they can. For those not academically inclined let schools offer them a place where they can excel in what they are good at and find their niche in the world. The trash collector is no less valuable a member of society than the prime minister.

However I fear that when my own son is of the age to enter high school if I am unable to afford the move to the catchment of a good RC school I will have to follow the example of some of my friends and return to the country of my birth, thus depriving him of living in the country of his.

The only choice I am interested in is the choice to choose the best to suite his ability.

[bill basing]

Thatcher started League Tables because she objected to Local Education Authorities(many of them controlled by Labour or Lib Dems) having any powers. Camoron now has Tory local councils and so will devolve power but will probably cut spending in return for local freedom. Gove is an ex-journalist who has suddenly become an expert on education. I realise that Tory M.P.'s do not come from teaching backgrounds as the pay is too low for them. Those that can do, those that can't teach and the hopeless know-alls become journalists.

[Sid Smith]

Mr Gove omits to say what he intends to do about disruptive pupils. If heads were given the power to permanently exclude disruptive children then schools would improve. Currently it takes ages to get rid of them and then you have to exchange your disruptive child for one from another local school. Let somebody promise to fund more Pupil Response Units staffed by volunteer well-paid teachers who like the challenge of teaching the unteachable.

[Richard]

What rubbish. Make children go to the nearest school to their home. This will take thousands of cars of the roads. This school would also become a focus for that local community. From there, we might make a headway into the violence and destruction. I live in Germany and that policy does them well and its the one I grew up with in the UK.

[Matt]

What rubbish is this? Which party was it that centralised the education system in the first place with its "top down", highly prescriptive, national curriculum and removing local authority control of schools and establishing a myriad of quangos to run education from the centre? Labour? No, I think it was the Tories in the 1988 Education Reform Act.

Who was it who began the denigration of teachers and their professionalism? Labour? No, I think it was a man called Kenneth Baker. Some people have short memories.

Who on earth wants schools beholden to millionaires who insist that creationism should be taught to innocent children, which is what is happening in Academy schools already.

As for Danish/Swedish "free" schools, what the Toris never mention is that the Scandavian populations pay far higher taxes than we do in Britain. That's partly why their public services are so good, but you won't hear Cameron or Gove utter a word about that. You cannot import models from other countries and expect them to work in the same way here.

It's an arrogant con.

[Will]

I think you've narrowly missed the point here.

The good schools would be able to expand in the knowledge that new classrooms built would be filled, simply by parents choosing the better school.

And the bad schools would either wither and die as parents send their kids elsewhere - or they improve to catch up with the nearby better schools.

And thirdly (and most importantly) parents would be able to start new state schools themselves. This freedom will create a real competition for pupils.

Groves idea is to create a free market. And it's worked fantastically in Denmark, and I see no reason why not here.

More info about Denmark's free schools: http://www.adamsmith.org/80ideas/idea/7.htm

[oldandrew]

The trouble with choice is the main thing it can do is damage the bad schools. Now this isn't a bad thing if politicians are actually willing to close failing schools down and force better schools to take their (often very challenging) students. However, parents hate the inconvenience and teachers resist losing their jobs, and so normally the schools limp on getting worse and "choice" merely allows a few canny parents to escape but doesn't actually change anything.

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Teaching Blog at: http://oldandrew.edublogs.org
Latest entry: 3/8/2008

[Snuffy]

Everything you say about parental choice is right. It is simply a clever political move to make parents think that they are gaining something.

As for the business of parents setting up schools, it isn't just single mothers who don't know what a school needs, it is anyone who has never worked inside a school. I have no idea what a bank needs to work and I don't presume to know. Why everyone who has never been a teacher presumes to know what schools need is beyond me.

Where does the arrogance come from?