The leadership contest has seen much natural agreement and some forced disagreement. One of the issues that confused most onlookers is who was advocating the use of education vouchers. After Chris Huhne repeatedly asked Nick Clegg to deny that he supported ‘US-style vouchers’, Clegg became more and more adamant about his opposition to the idea. Eventually, after its use as a bogeyman had served its purpose, the issue died away. While it was in the spotlight, however, no one seemed to stop and ask, ‘Why shouldn’t liberals advocate vouchers?’
If you do some statistical analysis of PISA results (worldwide tests of 15 year olds), the major variables that affect test scores more than any other are: socio-economic background, parental education levels, and peer effects. And we also know that Britain performs poorly when compared to other nations examined by PISA. So, any Lib Dem platform dedicated to equality of opportunity and meritocracy has to look at any proposed policy in light of how it will positively affect these three variables.
Our current policy platform, and brought to the fore by Nick’s campaign, has been to direct more money at the poorest pupils. This, of course, is to be welcomed. But school spending has a dubious link to outcomes and attainment. Some education policy wonks like Eric Hanushek claim that there is no real relationship between school spending and attainment, while others claim that there is a link, but is still not one of the most important variables. The fact that we are focused on the scandal of Britain’s long education tail – much to Mr Clegg’s and Centre Forum’s credit – is to be overwhelmingly welcomed. The fact that radical solutions are being offered is also good news. Too often our public services stance was one of a little more money, a little more training for staff, but also little thinking about how we reform institutions to empower the worst off.
New Labour’s watchword has been ‘standards not structures’, but that neglects the fact that standards are largely defined by the structures that they operate within. For a start, our party should acknowledge that there is no such thing as a comprehensive system, defined as free at the point of use. Rather than school fees being paid to the school bursar, they are increasingly being paid to the mortgage lender. As housing and communities become more ghettoised by income, schools are becoming more unequal, as some comprehensives contain pupils from better-off backgrounds, with more educated parents, and similar peers, while other comprehensives contain those from backgrounds whose poverty would not allow them to live elsewhere. It is the grammar school system, but not done by a random exam at 11 years old.
A radical answer to break this housing determinism is to break apart catchments areas through school choice. By having a voucher system that cannot be topped-up by richer parents, that is worth more in the hands of the least well-off, and that gives access to middle-class schools for lower-income parents, we can blow the institutional inequities out of the water. Peer effects are muted – everyone might know someone going on to university, rather than some schools sending all of their kids to university and some none at all, poorer kids still get the help that they need, and the higher income coming into the school slows down middle-class flight. And finally, it opens up the supply-side of education. If the voucher can’t be topped-up, then any provider who the parent chooses can accept the voucher.
Liberals have a long history of defending mutualism, old-Etonian Jo Grimond gave an impassioned defence of independent schools during the Crosby by-election, and Shirley Williams created the comprehensive system. Let all three systems of ownership compete for our affections, and let’s set the rules so that help to the poor offsets the natural advantages of the rich. After all, it works brilliantly in Sweden and the Netherlands. Systems of ownership competing to the benefit of the worst off – what could be more liberal than that?
* Simon Radford writes infrequently at www.koplobpobajob.blogspot.com, and was a Lib Dem parliamentary candidate in 2005.
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33 Comments
So how exactly would vouchers open up svchools to all parents? Geography and house prices area barriers, but so are transport costs and time factors. If parents on a ‘sink’ council estate want their little darlings to go to another school in the same town or city, they have to be able to get them there, and of course this also means a lonmger school day for the kids (not to mention a higher carbon footprint).
Of course the ‘choice’ agenda only works in urban areas, in much of the UK there is only one local comprehensive that is feasible for pupils to attend.
Pupil premium – yes, voucher systems and marketisation of eduation – no!
It is true that there are other barriers to low-income families, like the costs of uniforms and transport, but all of the kids who went to Haberdashers’ Askes school in Elstree used to get buses dotted around North London. I am sure that government could give more money to schools with more low-income students for transport costs. Buses would also likely lower the school’s carbon footprint. Either way, it’s harder surmountable.
And you’re right that choice would likely only work in an urban setting…but isn’t it better that we have choice in some areas that choice in none?
The pupil premium is great in that it gets us talking about the people and problems that a liberal party should be helping, but returns to education spend are still poor.
Excellent piece! I completely agree. Universal, state-funded vouchers (combined with a more extensive free school bus system) are the best way to promote choice, competition and equality of opportunity. It is a truly liberal idea!
Nick’s campaign, has been to direct more money at the poorest pupils. This, of course, is to be welcomed. But school spending has a dubious link to outcomes and attainment.
Doh. Why should we welcome spending increases when they are not well-associated with increases in performance? That would just be wasting money.
Have I missed something here. Currently my kids can apply for any school they like. They won’t get into any good distant ones ahead of locals. How exactly would vouchers change this? Schools will still be over-subscribed. If you don’t go by catchment or distance, then what?
Schools are already funded on the basis of numbers of pupils. Vouchers won’t give them an ability to expand they don’t have without vouchers.
There is a lot of rhetoric here about how radical vouchers are, but little to say how they would make any difference.
“There is a lot of rhetoric here about how radical vouchers are, but little to say how they would make any difference.”
They won’t.
The same problem exists in the USA as well.
They fire garbage teachers in the USA if they are allowed to fire them.
Many of your schools are not very good. The most obvious explanation is that some teachers are rubbish.
When Sir Cyril Taylor said there were about 17,000 “poor” teachers in England, I think he was being a little optimistic.
Let me tell you about competence,
if a US pilot bangs up a Red Cross depot or even a school or a wedding party, or a couple of wedding parties
so long as CNN don’t work it, it does not really matter, no harm, no foul..
if he fluff’s a missile into the home team he has to go.
Two issues, those are the standards as set, one mistake doesn’t matter, and the other does matter.
(the ethics, the right and the wrongs are irrelevant, operating standards are just that, standards)
(a) You have decide how bad a teacher has to be. (b) You have to show folks, examples of bad teachers being fired.
I don’t see it.
I am not arguing about ‘what’ a teacher has to do to be fired, I am just looking for examples of bad teachers being defined and tossed.
I think you Brits have a no blame culture
Tazia,
I agree that we have a no-blame culture. I haven’t heard of any teachers being fired purely because they are bad…in the state sector. I went to an independent school, where teachers WERE sent packing for being bad at their job. One example was a History teacher. Another was the Headmistress.
My point is that independent schools are much more conscious of their reputation that the average comprehensive (in general). Most local comps are the only realistic option for local children, even with the “Right to Choose” legislation of the 1980s. Independent schools have no guarantee about how many pupils they will get. They have to be well-performing, and that means good teachers and good facilities.
If universal education vouchers were introduced, along with a more extensive system of free school buses, the whole ethos behind the provision of education would change. If ALL schools were independent, and pupils could realistically choose to go elsewhere (by using free buses), then ALL schools would have to work harder to retain their pupils. One consequence of this would be an end to the culture of tolerating bad teachers. High standards of teaching are crucial in encouraging pupils; schools would quickly work out who was and was not hitting these standards.
A voucher system would also make education more felxible. I support having a national curriculum, but it should be broadened to include far more vocational subjects. For too long Britain has been held back by the perception (encouraged by Labour with policies like 50% of children going to university) that academic = success and vocational = failure. If all schools were independent and had more control over what subjects they offered, schools would have the opportunity to offer mainly vocational courses. Then non-academic pupils would be offered far more opportunities than at present.
Education vouchers are an essentially liberal idea because they give room for the market to prosper and provide services, while giving pupils the freedom to choose and providing equality of opportunity. They also decentralise decision-making power right down to the schools, parents and pupils – another liberal aim.
The point about vouchers, surely, is that it allows popular schools to expand, and new schools to be created, in competition with existing ones. In North Kingston, where I live, many parents want to see a new school founded. The LibDem council has refused, saying that this would have bad knock on effects on other schools in the area (some of which have a mixed history). With a voucher system the parents would be able to found a school (or an entrepreneuer could found it), and if they attracted pupils, they would get the money for those pupils. You can’t do that at the moment. The question surely, is whether parents and others should be able to found new schools when the council doesn’t want them to. Vouchers are the obvious way of enabling that to happen if that is what we want.
Variable vouchers (pupil premia) give all schools existing and not-yet-created an incentive to take kids who may be harder to get to the typical level of results. The variation in the level of funding is another issue altogether to vouchers. You can have pupil premiums without vouchers, or vouchers without pupil premiums, or you can have both, or neither.
Tim and Tom,
But my LEA already funds schools according to the numbers of pupils they have. They might be obstructive when it comes to expansion or new schools, but that is another issue, not, it seems tied to vouchers. So how would vouchers make a difference?
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Actually the nearest secondary school is out of catchment for us. We could apply to it, but we would be risking our place at the second nearest, which is also pretty good. The system does not simply suppress the exercise of choice, it actually suppresses the expression of choice. Say you want to go here, and you lose your entitlement to go there. It is an outrage, we need voting reform.
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Obviously the most decentralised system has a bigger role for parent governers and a lesser role for LEA governers or reps for remote theo-quangos (or quangods) like the ULT. The “choice agenda” at the moment is all about giving overall control of governing bodies of new schools to remote quangods. So far so typically New Labour rubbish.
But aren’t schools serving struggling communities going to find it harder to attract good parent governors – and so won’t equal decentralisation reinforce the inequality of provision? Answers on a postcard please.
Tazia suggests the problem is “some teachers are rubbish”. Now if that is so, it would be entirely coincidental that the poor-performing schools are almost always in the poor areas, and the good-performing schools are almost always in the prosperous areas. Does Tazia really believe that it might just as easily have worked out the other way round?
It is very easy to be a “good teacher” if you teach pupils who have good family support and come from backgrounds where there is a history of education and knowledge of what education can do. It is much more difficult if you teach pupils who come from families which have struggled to get by, have never had much contact with formal education, and maybe suffer with all sorts of other social problems as well.
So, if we fire the “garbage teachers” who have the impossible jobs in the schools with the difficult kids, what are we to do next? There isn’t a big pool of teachers we can call on to fill the jobs of those who have been sacked, particularly in the more critical subjects. And which teacher is going to volunteer to teach on one of these schools when the chances are s/he too will find it hard to get good performance from the pupils, so will end up without a job and unemployable in a few years’ time?
If you really want to tackle the problem of inequality in education, the answer is probably less choice rather than more – systems of bussing and the like to break up the rich area / poor area problem, maybe compelling the “good” teachers to go and teach in the “bad” schools etc.
The fear about vouchers and the like is that it’s really about a few middle-class people who want to get their kids out of mixing with the proles – understandably – with perhaps just the occasional snatching of an very bright prole kid to join them. Indeed, the language used by the vouchers people often hints at this.
There aren’t easy solutions to this problem. Joe is quite right in noting “There is a lot of rhetoric here about how radical vouchers are, but little to say how they would make any difference.”
Joe – Here are my postcards.
As you say, vouchers allow new schools to be funded, and allows existing schools to expand. That is how they change things. You want your kid to go to school x. School x wants to take your kid. With vouchers, end of message: your kid goes to school x. Without vouchers the LA may say no, and send you kid to school y.
Decentralisation would increase division unless it is accompanied by the pupil premium (which can be done with or without vouchers). Once that happens, and schools in poor neighbourhoods have (a lot) more money, then new opportunities open up for them – including paying governors if that is what it takes to improve leadership. It would certainly allow paying teachers more, or having smaller class sizes, or more lessons per kid per day, or more individual tuition, etc etc. All of these can raise pupil attainment. There is no reason why parental income should make any difference at all to attainment at 7, 11, 16, 18 or 21. That, surely, is an empowering liberal agenda?
Tim
“You want your kid to go to school x. School x wants to take your kid.”
Yes, but what when school x doesn’t want to take your kid. In fact NO school wants to take your kid, because he’s not too bright, he’s got behaviour problems, and he’s going to drag down the league table position of any school which takes him?
Pay “(a lot) more money” to any school which takes the kid is your answer. Well, ok, but aren’t we ending up saying the answer isn’t really vouchers but good old-fashioned tax-and-spend? With a big dollop of bureaucratic red tape and intrusiveness to work out just how much each kid is worth subsisiding in order to make the schools take them?
And with vouchers a school may say no. How many popular schools want to expand and are prevented by their LEA’s? If the difference is basically who gets to decide, then isn’t it clearer to say “schools should be allowed to expand” than “vouchers”.
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The other unstated question in this debate seems to be about the contribution to a school from the pupils, or the contribution to an education from the peer group. At a basic level this means peers not disrupting your lessons, but beyond this there is a benefit (isn’t there?) to having intellectual equals around to stimulate you.
Is it fair to jumble all children so that everybody gets the same kind of peer group? Or is it fair that every child gets back from their peer group about about what they give to it?
I lean very much towards the latter view. Minimising the total disruption is more important than sharing out the disruption. And the sensory deprivation of not having anybody to talk to on your own level – whatever that level is – is closer to cruelty than to education.
But I get the feeling that much of this debate assumes the former view: that fairness demands uniformity.
Isn’t the point that pupil premium/vouchers can create an incentive for schools to take problem/low-income kids. If low-income kids are “worth more” to the schools than other kids then the schools are more likely to take them as they would get more money. Your kid wants to go to school x, under the current system school x might not take your kid if they are a problem. With a premium, if that kid comes from a low-income background then school x has an incentive (money) to take them. The extra money can then benefit the school as a whole, in which ever way the governor’s/head sees fit – expanding to take more students, lowering class sizes, paying teachers more, etc. The original low-income child gets the chance of a better education and the other children benefit from the extra money in the school.
As I penned the original article, I shan’t wade in too much more, but merely will this once to point out one question: isn’t it a shame that we can’t have an open and honest debate about this during a leadership election without the issue being demogogued? It was the combination of metaphorical horns put on ‘vouchers’ as a very idea, with the nod to anti-Americanism by calling it ‘US-style’ that really annoyed me. Vouchers are a really interesting debate with no clear liberal ideological barriers to their consideration, and they use them quite happily in Holland and Sweden.
Anyway, I have enjoyed reading your comments and points on both sides, so thanks.
Matthew re pupil premiums: “Pay ‘(a lot) more money’ to any school which takes the kid is your answer. Well, ok, but aren’t we ending up saying the answer isn’t really vouchers but good old-fashioned tax-and-spend? With a big dollop of bureaucratic red tape and intrusiveness to work out just how much each kid is worth subsisiding in order to make the schools take them?”
No. The pupil premium idea is partly about targeting more money at the poorest pupils – and as such it is a much better use of scarce resources than (say) a pledge to raise spending per pupil across the board to private school levels, which would be massively expensive and would probably take years to achieve. (As an aside, Nick came in for some justified criticism for failing to explain clearly how he would fund the full cost of his policy on GMTV, but has Chris set out how he will finance his own much larger spending commitment?)
There is no need for a “big dollop of bureaucratic red tape and intrusiveness to work out just how much each kid is worth subsisiding in order to make the schools take them”. The criterion is children who are eligible for free school meals, which is already recorded obviously, and the premium is worth a standard amount.
The main attraction of the pupil premium as far as I’m concerned is as explained above by OneHourAhead: it gives a financial incentive to good schools to take kids from poorer backgrounds. The extra money is not simply allocated to schools in poor areas or particular catchment areas, but follows the pupil.
It’s a good policy as far as it goes, but a limited one because it only addresses educational disadvantage from the funding standpoint. It may give poorer kids a better chance of attending good schools, but it won’t increase the number of good schools or improve failing schools, which is surely the ultimate objective. To do that you need a means of driving up standards which is self-sustaining, not pursued by a succession of heavy-handed ministerial diktats. To me that means freeing teachers and governors from Whitehall interference; and supply-side reform, welcoming independent providers into the system to provide the stimulus of competition and greater diversity. As Sweden and Holland show, there is no reason why taxpayer-funded education should entail state monopoly provision.
In short, it means addressing head-on the issues Simon sets out so well in his article. Unfortunately any prospect of doing so in the leadership campaign was snuffed out by the hysteria over ‘the V-word’, and an opportunity was missed to stake out a radical liberal solution that would trump both the Tories and the reheated statism of Balls’ Orwellian-sounding Children’s Plan.
I am not an expert on these matters, but I do not think it is “anti-American” to refer to “US style voucher systems” in a pejorative way when you consider that amongst the advanced economies, the US has the lowest level of social mobility, second only to the UK (the “American Dream” notwithstanding).
See this pdf to verify that;
http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/Summary.pdf
That in itself presents a prima-facie case that we should probably not emulate the US education system. I accept the debate may be more complicated than it appears, as different states may vary in how they do things and have different records.
The pupil premium is an idea taken from Sweden and looks to me like a good policy.
If the sole criterion for a pupil premium is entitlement to free school meals, then it’s a very crude one. It still doesn’t answer what happens with the difficult kid that no school wants to take for fear of being dragged down – when that difficult kid’s parents are wealthy enough not to place him/her into the FSM bracket.
As for “driving up standards” I wish the problem were so simple as lazy teachers and all you need to do is put the fear of unemployment due to their school being closed down to them and they’ll work harder and their pupils will do better. I fear it is not, however.
The easiest way to improve standards is simply to make sure you admit the right sort of pupils and don’t admit the wrong sort. You might even manage this by having some sort of “ethos” to which potential pupils and their parents must subscribe in order to be admitted. How is the voucher system going to cope with this? I really want more answers than I have received so far from those proposing it.
The Sutton Report reaches the not-startling conclusion that as far as life-chances are concerned your parents matter.
Their claim is that the particular aspect of parenting that matters most is their wealth.
But this is potentially false causation.
What they haven’t done is assess other aspects of parental attributes that might be equally or more important and concentrated more amongst high income earners.
Intelligent people for example tend to earn more, not exclusively, but there is a clear link. They’re not intelligent because they’re rich, Sutton shows that at least, rich parents can have children who start as low achievers (although they don’t say in what ratio to other income groups).
That said, should we find it surprising that children of intellectually curious parents achieve better results than children without access to what amounts to 1-2 more educators in their lives for more time than they spend at school? And further these are educators who in the main care more deeply and personally about your education and life chances than any teacher ever could. Your home life is a class size schools can only dream of.
Is there anything the government could do about that on equality grounds that would not in itself create more serious problems in respect of liberty? Should it? A freedom-lover who values the family would surely say no?
We leave it to Labour to make patronising moves in the direction of nationalising children to satisfy their desire to control all aspects of our lives in the name of equality.
To answer the specific related challenge on vouchers. When you cut through the debates about premiums, premises, and allocations the one thing they do that is different is to transfer the choice on how educational resources are allocated from supposedly wise bureaucrats in the DoE and LEAs, direct to parents, and later in school life, potentially direct to pupils.
I can see no principled reason why a liberal would be against that. Merely a lot of hot air that boils down to fear of empowering people.
Andy,
Your penultimate paragraph just does NOT answer the main area of concern. Just HOW do you deal with the fact that a school may have more applicants than places? Schools may not wish to expand to cater for every applicant, they may wish to stay small and exclude all but the best applicants in order to maintain their reputation for quality.
The hot air on this subject is coming from people like you, who when asked difficult questions about how exactly this thing would be organised go off into bluster about anyone who asks these questions must be some horrible statist who delights in the idea of forcing people into things. But you don’t actually answer the questions.
Comrade Matthew, I’d have said ‘misguided statist’ rather than ‘horrible’.
In answer to your question
“Just HOW do you deal with the fact that a school may have more applicants than places?”
You leave that up to the schools to decide.
Some as you note may wish to expand or take-over running failing facilities. Some may wish to stay small.
But this is an allocations issue that is as much a challenge in a no-voucher as voucher systems. The only difference is that in the voucher system the schools are responding to the demands of parents, the no-voucher the demands of the authority.
Both systems would be equally constrained by other factors such as planning law, resources, minimum quality standards, access guidelines etc. although under vouchers there would at least be incentives for schools to campaign against obstructive laws, low resources and for creating opportunity, rather than just waiting to be ignored at the next LEA committee meeting.
Which do you prefer Matthew rule by authority or freedom to choose and empowering individuals and communities?
@ Matthew, as an addition to what Andy’s said, if the school doesn’t wish to expand (or may not be able to) but there’s demand for places of a similar nature, then a voucher scheme that allows new schools to be established easily would mean you’d get a new school to meet the demand, possible set up by some teachers from within the existing school.
In Sweden, my understanding is that any two or more qualified teachers can set up a school and take in voucher funded pupils, that sounds to me like a good method of meeting demand for quality places, does it not to you?
Yes, do why do you claim it is putting parents in control when it is actually putting schools in control?
Under your system a school which is oversubscribed with applicants can turn down applicants who will be difficult to teach and who will tend to drag down its reputation. The natural thing for them to do, in order to get the academically strong pupils, is to introduce tests. So what you are actually doing is re-introducing the 11+.
If no school can be forced to take on pupils, there will be a whole batch of hard-to-educate children who will go without schooling.
It may well be that this is more liberal, and the increasing division your system would cause is worth it for the sake of liberalism. All I’m trying to do is get to the root of what you want, and get you to be honest in admitting it.
You say that “under vouchers there would at least be incentives for schools to campaign against obstructive laws, low resources and for creating opportunity, rather than just waiting to be ignored at the next LEA committee meeting” but why is that any different from what happens now? Schools are free now to campaign for more resources.
We have a school, say, Huntbach High. Huntbach High has places for 1000 students. Huntbach High is in a small town, called, say, Mayerton. Mayerton has 1500 school-age children. Under the current system Huntbach High can only ever take 1000 students. It will look at the 1500 available students in mayerton and pick the ones that are best for the school, maybe by introducing tests. This is the only way the school can get better results and, in the long run, more money. Then it may be able to take more students, or attract better teachers or build better facilities. But this will only happen if the government says it can have more money – the school itself has no control.
In a scenario where each student is worth a certain amount of money to Huntbach High (vouchers,premium,free market,whatever) then there become different options. If a normal student was worth £1000 to the school and a low-income child £5000 then the school now has an incentive to take the low-income students. Before it would have taken 1000 normal students, the best ones it could find, having only this option to attract more money, but with the increased worth of the other children the school would now be more likely to take those children, maybe now taking 500 normal kids plus the 500 ‘unwanted’ kids. Now the school has the money it needs PLUS teaches different students. In this scenario the school can also spend the money it gains on whatever it wants, without the need to apply for specific government grants for certain things and having to go through the bureaucracy to get it. It has essentially earnt this money by taking the low-income kids. So the school could expand to take on more of the 1500 students, or it could increase the wages of teachers to give them better incentives or attract better teachers, or it could build a better gymnasium – it is up to them. This leaves 500 other students. In the original scenario these would be the worst 500 in mayerton but under the second scenario these are good students who other schools would take. Alternatively, a new school (Tate Comprehensive) could start to take these students on, as the money is available directly through the students, again without the need for the bureaucracy. With now two schools in mayerton they would start to compete. Each would be after the same money, and each would want a mix between the most ‘profitable’ students and the best students as this would be best for the school. Now the consumers (parents/children) are in control of where to spend the money and the schools would then increase standards to attract the consumers. Taking it further, better schools would attract more people to mayerton and the whole process can continue.
All of this could easily apply also to children with behavioural problems – it just about getting the incentives right.
To me this seems like a fairly decent answer to the problem. It allows more control to be in the hands of schools and parents and does away with the one-size-fits-all idea.
Good grief, what a load of rubbish from beginning to end Matthew.
It’s rather like arguing that the government should control all websites because writers decide what they write rather than their readers. If publishers don’t listen to their readers they tend to lose them. Schools that didn’t respond to the demands of parents would face the same challenge.
I also don’t accept your argument that choice automatically polarises the system. Many schools have an anti-selection ethos that many parents demand and that would continue. Equally there would be schools that cater for special need in education whether that be high intelligence or low attainment, because in both cases there is demand for that. I’m afraid the issue here is your complete lack of trust and faith in parents, as stated earlier.
“I can see no principled reason why a liberal would be against that. Merely a lot of hot air that boils down to fear of empowering people.”
Further schools now are not free to campaign as you put it, they ar free to go cap in hand to the LEA who has absolute power to decide their fate. That’s quite a disincentive for a school to say what they think and makes parents nervous as well. Under a voucher scheme a vindictive LEA or government cannot cut funding to a school that questions their priorities.
OneHour – your argument essentially boils down to throw a HUGE amount of money at problem students and you can get schools to take them. Yes, you can do a lot of things by throwing huge amounts of taxpayers’ money at them.
Andy, you insist on believing my position comes from a pathological hatred of choice rather than – what it actually comes from – a scepticism over whether it really means as much of a difference from what we have already as you suppose.
I, unlike you, I believe – have sat on LEA committees. I have seen that the LEA has almost no control over what goes on in schools. This idea of LEA bureaucrats dictating to them is absolute nonsense. I wish I could have had a say over what goes on in schools, there’s lots of things I’d like to have made them do e.g. throw out all their computers. But as a councillor in an LEA I had no say on any of that. My wife, however, as chair of governors of a local school had a lot of say on what went on in it.
I have also seen how the existing school choice system works – some schools are massively oversubscribed, others are undersubscribed. This is closely correlated to their exam performance. While some parents may consider other factors, this is the overwhelming one, and in a situation of competition where fear of unemployment drives performance, it will dominate over everything else.
This is why I call you and your like “Neo-Trots”. The old Trots just stuck “big bad capitalist pig” labels on anyone who didn’t go along with them 100% or who asked awkward questions or was sceptical about whether their simplistic plans would really usher in a golden age. You just insist that I have some sort of “lack of trust and faith in parents” which could not be further from the truth.
Matthew, if I’m wrong, could you illustrate for me in what way you would empower parents to have more control over their children’s education…
As for labelling opponents I hope I’m not the only one touched by the irony of your last paragraph.
I am happy to have a system whereby parents have a choice between schools, and schools are free to offer whatever they feel will attract parent applicants. I believe we already have some of that, but I would reduce national government requirements on schools to give more of it. I would wish for the dominant factor in how schools are run to be the teachers and governing body – which is already what we have.
As for the more imaginative things like guaranteeing state funding to groups of parents who wish to set up their own school, and providing large amounts of extra funding to go along with pupils who are “challenging” to teach, yes these are good ideas to work with, the only quibbles I have with them are the cost elements involves, which if they are to work would be considerable.
I am concerned over a system whereby when there are more applicants than places, schools make the choice on whatever basis they like. As I have argued, the fear is that this will in effect bring back the 11+ and the social division that entailed.
You might note that I have been vocal within the party in defence of the one major “alternative provider” of education we have now – the Roman Catholic Education system. This has not been a popular position to take, given that many Liberal Democrats have a kneejerk opposition to faith schools.
The last paragraph of mine was meant to be ironic – my point is that the politics may be different but the attitude is the same.
Matthew at 26. As I mentioned previously, the pupil premium is the system used in Sweden and it is a viable system. I spoke to the researchers who put the policy together (Centre Forum) and they said it is budget nuetral. I am not a policy expert, but I imagine the value on a pupil can be less as well as more. I am sure the differentials in the example earlier are grossly overstated.
I remember when sir Keith Joseph originally proposed school vouchers. He was a nasty neo-Liberal, but even when he was education secretary in the Thatcher government he failed to introduce a voucher scheme. As well as the policy not being progressive, it was not viable either.
That is now vouchers got a bad name. However a voucher system that is successfully practiced in another country and which has got a high level of social mobility should be looked at seriously. For me to change my mind and oppose the pupil premium, I would like someone to put the case that the system in Sweden has serious drawbacks.
Now what I do not understand is how this issue came up in the leadership debate.
As I understand it, the pupil premium is already Lib Dem policy (correct me if I am wrong). It is not a system that is used in the US. Early in the leadership campaign, Nick Clegg was interviewed by a supporter of his, I think in the Guardian. Nick said something that made Chris think he supported a US system of education vouchers.
After some overheated exchanges, Nick emphatically denied this was his intent.
I would like to ask the question to Simon or anyone else who supports vouchers;
Are you proposing to add to or replace the pupil premium?
I do not understand why Nick said what he said given we already have a pupil premium policy.
Andy at 19. You missed my point in reference to the Sutton Report. Of course it would be difficult to acheieve perfect social mobility. Your parents are also your teachers, and if you have good parents your life chances will improve. Middle class parents are naturally good at teaching their children to also be middle class.
My point was that despite the the myths about the “American Dream”, countries that persue the neo-Liberal model of economic development, namely the UK and US, have less social mobility than countries that use the European model.
You do not explain why there is a difference between the US and say Denmark.
That is why I raised the issue of “US style vouchers”, and that there is an apparent prima-facie case that they fail to acheive greater social mobility (ie the American Dream).
If I understand you properly, I get the impression that this is not an issue for you because you are not concerned about social mobility in the first place.
Either way, I would be interested if you could clarify that point because it obviously affects the discussion about what we are trying to acheive.
Geoff: I’m deeply concerned about social mobility in respect of access to life chances, poverty traps, concentrated power and barriers to opportunity that can be removed. That is not the same thing though as agonising about distribution.
The problem with the latter approach is the well recognised issue that social mobility goes up if you drive all the high-income earners out of your country. That’s a perverse outcome.
In education it means we occassionally get these mad debates where it is argued that the way to improve education in this country is by destroying existing good schools that do not conform to a purist model of comprehensive excellence.
I see no point, for example, in attacking successful grammar schools in areas like Buckingham if that’s what local people want. Labour’s removal of the assisted places scheme simply means that less bright children from poorer backgrounds now have access to high quality schools in the indepedent sector. Not a great result for social mobility that.
Social mobility for me means that every child has a chance to achieve their potential. I think vouchers could help that happen and should be considered, that is all.
Geoffrey @30,
http://www.cer.org.uk/pdf/wp_education.pdf (pdf)
Eg penultimate para of page 18. It looks like the Danish system is very voucher like. Would that be OK then? Or Swedish-style vouchers?
The leadership election is over. The use of the term “US-style” was only ever a slur, and never a contribution to a sober debate.
The question of which continental systems we can learn from is a good one. I’m not pursuaded by the arguments for vouchers, but unlike you I’m not about to condemn anyone for asking, nor do I consider “US style” to be an appropriate form of insult.
The numbers I quoted above were purely fictional, I thought that it was obviously a made-up scenario, unless there actually is a Huntbach High in a town called Mayerton, then that would be scary.
In terms of funding, the numbers I have seen in the report and other articles say that the pupil premium will cost about £2.5 Billion above the current funding in this area (£2.5 billion, essentially doubling it). It has been proposed for the money to come from taking certain families out of the tax credit scheme and saving money through efficiency measures. Whether this can be achieved is another argument for another day. But what are the other options? Raising the amount of spending to public school levels for all students? That will cost £17 billion. What are the plans of the people who don’t want this shift in payment?
Why did this all become such an issue? Because that’s politics. Nick Clegg was quoted as being in favour of school vouchers, when actually he was talking about the pupil premium, which is already policy. The others jumped on it. The difference between the two is presumably to do with the amount of money you parcel out to each student. With vouchers a school outside the normal state school system doesn’t have to take a pupil it doesn’t want, leading to the problems Matthew describes with problem-kids losing out. However, with a pupil premium, as I have stated, you give an extra incentive for a school to take the low-income/problem kids. Also, as you can then have a competitive market, you can then open up a lot more educational avenues beyond the normal system. RC schools would benefit just as any other, if there were a demand for them. The point is, that by not pushing all the money in a certain direction, you can actually find out what people want and need, and maybe they want more RC schools. Under a more liberal system you would actually find that out.
I think Nick modelled his original proposal on the Dutch system, which may vary from the Swedish one. As for the US system, I would agree with Geoffrey that the US education system should not be the basis for our own, but I don’t think vouchers can be blamed for it, I would have thought that they were still a relatively small proportion of the overall system?