August 24, 2009
Tory Free Schools?
The Tories want to emulate Sweden and introduce so-called “free schools”. These would be owned and operated by charitable bodies, but will continue to be funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. They will have more autonomy than ordinary state schools, especially over the curriculum they teach – but they won’t be able to select pupils on the basis of ability.
Ostensibly, the only real difference between these “free schools” and Blair’s City Academies is that the free schools will not be constrained by e.g. having to take a certain minimum number of pupils, and hence could be much smaller and not reliant upon the deep-pockets of wealthy backers. Rather, parents or small-time philanthropists could step in.
But I must confess, I’m cynical about the Tory’s motivations for introducing these free schools, and I’m worried about the consequences that may result.
There are already worries that introducing free schools will not decrease costs in school provision. Yesterday The Observer reporteda study from the Skolverket (Swedish National Education Agency) which found that nearly half of Swedish local education directors did not think the new schools had produced “more effective use of resources” and 90% identified “significant increases in costs”.
Furthermore, the adoption of free schools in the UK would possibly be more costly than in Sweden because the Swedes allow profit-seeking private firms to establish free schools, whereas Cameron has said that only charitable not-for-profit entities could do so in the UK. This opens the possibility of a Tory government having to shoulder more of the cost burden in a UK model than the Swedes do in their’s.
But then this was perhaps never really about costs. Michael Gove has, after all, admitted that the start-up costs of UK free schools would be large, yet has pledged to commit to this even amidst Tory rhetoric of drastic spending cuts across the public sector. (Whether this pledge is maintained post-election in the middle of major recession is something about which we’ll have to wait and see).
Rather, it seems the Tory “free school” idea is designed to deal with a specifically British education issue: the legacy of the grammar schools, the presence of the private sector and widely-held perceptions that the comprehenisve system has failed.
The introduction of free schools may in fact be motivated by a belief that it can achieve a sort of education Holy Grail for those with leanings towards the right: provide middle class kids with better educations than their parents’ perceive are available from local comrpehensives, whilst leaving the remaining grammar and independent schools well alone. This shores-up two important voting blocks: the upper middle classes and above who want to keep their selective elite schools, and those less well-off middle class parents who don’t live in grammar catchment areas and can’t afford to go private.
You can see why, looked at it this way, free schools are very attractive to the Conservatives. If they result in middle class parents believing their children are getting a “decent” education and escaping the perceived horrors of the comp system, then this will pull a whole lot of votes to the blue corner.
Indeed, the way that the free schools issue has been parsed is extremely instructive on this matter. Free schools, we are told, will help drive up standards. They will provide better educations for their own students – we are assured – whilst incentivising competing comps to up their game, thereby driving up standards across the board. But is this really the most likely outcome, or is the rhetoric about driving up standards masking something altogether more complicated?
Firstly we must note that empirical evidence from Sweden about the standards impact of free schools is hard to cross-apply to the UK. This is becasue there is mixed evidence about the impact on standards, with much of it being rooted in subjective anecdote from head teachers and parents. Yet even considering reports that indicate standards went up in Sweden, that experience is not immediately cross-applicable to the UK, for the Swedish educational legacy is entirely different to the UK’s. Before 1992 there was virtually no provision of independent education in Sweden where, then as now, it is forbidden for schools to take fees from parents. Thus there is not only no comparison with the legacy of the old politically-charged UK tripartite system (which clings on in the remaining 164 grammar schools), but also no comparison with the British system of fee-paying private schools. The educational landscape and contextual background of Britain and Sweden are very different: what worked for them may not have the same effects in a country riven by middle class anxiety over state education, which is heavily influenced by the established alternatives of grammar and fee-paying institutions, plus a great deal of myth and nostalgia about systems no longer in place.
To assess the likely impacts of free schools in Britain, therefore, we must work at the conceptual level and consider possible outcomes given the British context.
It’s worth recalling that Cameron-style free schools will not be allowed to select by ability – and yet proponents believe that they will drive up standards. This is intriguing, because selection by ability is one of the key ways in which grammar and independent schools manage to excel. The most intelligent kids (or perhaps better, those with the most pro-active parents) are cherry-picked at an early age, and put in small classes where most of their peers’ are being backed by pushy parents who want them to succeed academically. Unsurprisingly this results in lots of these kids doing very well indeed. (Witness the recent domination of private and grammar schools in the A Level results: last week saw private schools achieving 50.4% of papers sat attaining A grades, versus 20.4% in the comprehensive sector. In 2008 31% of privately educated students got 3 A grades, versus 26% at selective grammar schools and just 7.7% at comprehensives).
If the selection aspect is removed, then how will free schools improve standards? Some proponents of free schools, like Toby Young, apparently believe that a bit of good old fashioned discipline and an emphasis on competition are all that’s required. As though labelling the academically least-able as stupid by publicly ranking their ability will lead them to knuckle down and work hard, as oppose to lashing out in alienated resentment against the system that is castigating them.
But let’s be fair to the Tories and suppose their policy wonks have a slightly more sophisticated take than advocating the return of Discipline and pointing out the thickos. A plausible alternative is that free schools will do well because many of them will be small.
There is a lot of plausibility in this: small schools with small class sizes mean lots of attention for individual students. As a general rule, this drastically improves the attainment of individual pupils because increased attention benefits learning, not just in terms of the time dedicated to individual understanding but because learning is promoted by the sense that one is worthwhile and not just a faceless number in a class of 35. It’s no coincidence that grammar and private schools have smaller class sizes than comprehensives, after all.
But look where this thought about standards takes us. It assumes that many free schools will be small in scale and will thus drive-up standards for the pupils educated at them. Yet here’s my worry: that free schools will predominantly be established by pushy middle-class parents in their own neighbourhoods, as a way of avoiding sending their kids to comps that are (perceived to be) failing and which recruit widely from a local area, and where grammar and independent schools are not available alternatives. (Indeed, that’s exactly what Toby Young says he is going to do).
If such schools are small, they would presumably be entitled to restrict entry to the school by catchment area. If established in a middle-class neighbourhood, however, restriction to catchment area would mean that only middle-class kids get a look in. The result? Selection would occur in effect, but operate through the proxy of restricted catchment area covering only well-to-do neighbourhoods: small free schools would be dominated by the middle class kids with pushy parents.
So what would happen to standards? They probably would go up – at the small free schools. But what about at the comprehensives that are left alongside them? Would the competition from the new free schools drive up standards a-la-free market competition model? Or would the withdrawal of greater numbers of middle class kids and their pushy parents mean that comprehensives become dumping grounds for the working class kids whose parents may not have the time or inclination to join PTAs, let alone set up their own free schools? The kinds of parents, perhaps, who themselves may never have experienced the myriad benefits of education and who consequently don’t pass on a culture of learning to their kids in the manner of the more bourgeoisie?
Would we thus not get precisely what the Tories claim they want to avoid? A three-tier system where the wealthiest send their children private, the middle classes either use grammars where available and free schools where not, and those at the bottom are left with the comprehensives that are so widely perceived to have failed, but robbed of the ameliorating benefits of pushy middle class parents and their much-pushed kids? If standards do go up, will they perhaps do so only for the middle classes currently making the most noise, leaving the rest behind?
The risks of entrenching social inequality and immobility by ensuring that the already better-off monopolise quality education appear considerable. Now, call me a cynic, but I have to ask: Is this the price the Conservatives are willing to pay, in exchange for the gratitude of the middle classes and the votes such gratitude will bring?
Peter said,
August 24, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I agree that if the absolute standard of comprehensive education drops then this is a bad consequence (this is kind of obvious though). But I think we can go further.
Even if there’s no absolute change in the quality of comprehensive education (eg. PTAs are made up of the same quality parents etc) but middle class kids do better at free schools, this might still amount to a depression of the position of working class kids. This is because, as Adam Swift takes pains to point out in his excellent little book HOW NOT TO BE A HYPORCRITE: SCHOOL CHOICE FOR THE MORALLY PERPLEXED PARENT, education is a positional good. So free schools, even if they don’t make comps worse, might have the effect of shunting comp educated kids down the queue for good university places etc. That’s a bad thing, imo.
What the solution for British education might be though, I do not know.
Simon W said,
August 26, 2009 at 8:34 am
I believe the proportion of Oxbridge students who have come from state schools has declined since the 1960s, interestingly this coincides with the large scale destruction of our grammar school system (although I accept a few grammar schools still remain, although some are grammar schools in name only due to tinkering with their admissions policy). I believe the two are related. It is the removal of the opportunity to attend a grammar school, for those children suitably academic, for the vast majority of children, that has been a significant factor in the appallingly moribund state of social mobility in our country. There was nothing wrong with secondary moderns (nor for that matter polytechnics). Without getting into a simplistic rant over the realities of life (in the real world not everyone will or deserves to get prizes) I think we can agree that there is something very wrong with the present provision of education by the state. The success of the top private schools should be applauded (and by “top” I do not refer to the size of the school fees but those who continue to maximise the potential of their pupils, who I accept are selected on academic achievement coupled with potential – although I would be disingenuous not to say are also fortunate to have parents able and willing to pay the fees or among those few who obtain a scholarship) and instead of trying to dismantle their success we (the state) should try and emulate it – bottom line is bring back grammar school and secondary moderns, ensure both are equipped and focused on the needs of their pupils and of society as a whole (ensuring that the skills taught (and retained) are relevant to both the pupil’s and the state’s needs – skills for life but also meaningful employment).
Paul said,
August 26, 2009 at 9:56 am
Simon,
I’m afraid I don’t agree on a number of points.
But let me prefix what I’m going to say by remarking that I used to agree with you, and in fact used to hold the exact same position. However, numerous conversations over a course of about 3 years with a tutor of mine at Oxford have convinced me that the story about grammar school decline and brining them back just doesn’t fit right. here we go.
You say that secondary moderns were fine. The evidence is that actaully, they weren’t. They were pretty hopeless. At the age of 11 kids were packed off to one of the three options; those that ended up in secondary moderns got third rate educations. Those in grammar schools indeed got excellent educations.
By introducing the comprehensive system, two things (broadly) happened:
The more average kids benefited from vastly improved educations at comps BUT the brighter kids did indeed suffer because post-1992 especially academic decline at the top end of standards has been rife.
But note that this academic decline is more to do with the itnroduction of league tables and incentives for government to manipulate stats by making tests easier and teachers incentivised to teach to the test. It’s not obviously linked to the decline of grammar schools. My dad says that when he taught O and A level French at a comp in the 1980s the standards were fine; it was post-introduction of the National Curriculum that fucked the standards at the top end.
But in the middle, for the average kids, comps have been a blessing. The majority of kids – not the best and brightest, i’ll admit – now enjoy vastly superior educations than previously. for example look at the 2008 states for the comps in my home town of Southport: in 2008 for the basic “5 or more grades A*-C at GCSE” stat, we have 91% getting this at Christ the King Catholic High School, 77% at Greenbank High School, 63% at Meols Cop High School, 73% at Birkdale High School and 56% from Stanley High School Sports Complex.
91% at my old school getting 5 A*-C GCSEs! That’s amazing. And my comp had a *lot* of discipline problems. The others aren’t doing quite so well, to be sure, but here’s the rub: 5 A*-C GCSEs for your average kids is a lot better than what they would have gotten under the old seconary modern system, where they were effectively abandoned and prepared for low-grade but non-manual work.
Yes, standards have fallen at the top end. There is no denying that. But they seem to have risen in the middle – so there’s no straightforward story about the death of grammar schools destroying education. League tables have been far more destructive.
As for your points about social mobility, there’s a massive blind spot in your position: that the grammar schools were always, if not monopolised, then dominated by the middle classes. Working class kids struggled to get into grammar schools, with the result that it was the middle classes who got the best educations and had their kids packed off to Oxbridge and the top universities to cement the social stratification.
For a while, comps threatened to reverse that social stagnation…but as you point out we have gone back to massive levels of private school and grammar school kids dominating e.g. Oxbridge admissions (I think that stats are 7% of UK students independently educated, but making up 48% of Oxford places or something insane like that).
But is it the decline of the grammar schools that did this, or the assault by successive administrations upon standards at the *top* end, whilst improving the middle? It seems to me that private and grammar school kids get more Oxbridge places because they have teachers who are specialists in getting them into Oxbridge by focusing on all sorts of extra-curricular activities, backed-up by very pushy parents. Over-worked, over-tested and over-scrutinised teachers in the comp system cannot compete – but not because they are at comps, but because the league table culture drowns the teachers in work and pressure, whilst the kids at the top end are left unchallenged and thus don’t develop at the rate of their private/grammar counterparts…thus fair less well at Oxbridge interview etc.
But again, there story seems to be one about a meddling government obsessed with targets, measurement and manipulting statistics, rather than the decline of the traditional tri-partite model per se.
I don’t wan’t to go back to the old system. I want to ban private schools and grammar schools, completely overhaul the comp system, take government’s meddling hand out of educational attainment, completely overhaul the GCSE and A level standards by making them hard and in-depth again (particularly the latter), but abandoning the insanity of league tables.
I think that will do far more for social mobility that returning to a system that wrote kids off at age 11 and entrenched the dominance of the middle classes and the expense of the poorer.
Paul said,
August 26, 2009 at 9:59 am
p.s. but i’m a left wing extremist, so nobody will ever listen to me.
:)
Simon W said,
August 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Paul,
I think we will have to agree to disagree and I am also aware that I do not have empirical evidence to back up some of my assertions however allow me the indulgence of a few observations.
Your comment that those children who went to secondary modern got a third rate education whilst those who went to grammar received an excellent education high a different view than my own on what constitutes an “excellent education”. My view is that an “excellent education” is one that maximises the potential of the individual but also prepares him or her to their future life after school although not in a prescriptive way but in a manner that recognises both the aspirations of the students coupled with a dose of reality. There needs to be a reality check, your 16 year school student may want to be an astronaut but if he or she is struggling with the new combined science GCSE then possibly his/her career aspirations needs to be, diplomatically but firmly, adjusted. Basically my belief is that an excellent education is not one based on how many A grade the individual obtains but how much educational intuition(s) the individual has attended has maximised their potential. The idea that an “excellent education” is based purely on academic achievement is both narrow and a slur on those excellent teachers who over the years (earlier in secondary moderns but now in our comprehensives) turned a pig’s ear into, if not exactly a purse, at least into individual with the basic skills that allows them to be productive and fulfilled members of society.
I am not sure I agree with your statement that the majority of children now “enjoy vastly superior educations” than previously which seems to be based on the “5 or more grade A*-C” statistics you quote. This does not seem to jell with comments I have heard in the media from employers’ federations, university admissions etc. regarding falling standards of basic literacy and innumeracy.
I am also struggling to understand your position regarding the “working class struggle to get into grammar school” which according to you were “then dominated by the middle classes”. I do not want to get into a nature v. nurture argument; but my recollection from the 1960s of why my eldest brother failed to get into the local grammar school was nothing to do with any perceived class domination but to the fact he failed his 11 Plus, incidentally the excellent secondary modern he went to did not seem to stop him from becoming an officer in the armed forces and subsequently an airline pilot (although I suppose airline pilots are just gloried bus drivers so maybe his secondary modern education did stifle his future professional life).
Lastly, as my day job is interfering with this interesting and important argument, why cannot “working class” (I am personally uncomfortable with these class “badges” which seem to be perpetuated into all discussion in t his country with regards to education – what does working or middle class really mean today?) parents be “pushy” or is a parental desire to do the best for one’s offspring purely a prerogative of the “middle classes”?
Regards,
Simon W
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