Vouchers, it may seem, are an idea whose time has come. The proposal to give parents a voucher for the cost of their children's annual education, which they can "spend" at the school of their choice (private or state), is not only Tory policy, it is also finding favour in No 10. Andrew Adonis, one of Tony Blair's top advisers, has recently visited Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Mecca for both US and British voucher advocates. John Norquist, mayor of Milwaukee, has paid a return visit to London.
I, too, admire the Milwaukee voucher scheme - known as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. But is it transferable to Britain? It exclusively serves low-income families; only children from households with incomes of less than 75 per cent above the poverty line are eligible. The voucher pays private schools about two-thirds the per pupil amount used in the local state schools. The private schools cannot ask the parents for anything extra.
The schools must abide by other regulations. They are not allowed to select among the voucher applicants. They cannot discriminate on the basis of religious affiliation, race or even past achievement or behaviour record. They can reject children with special needs only if they do not already have paying children with that particular need on the school roll. If a school has more voucher applicants than it has places for them, it must choose by lottery (subject to the ubiquitous rule that siblings have preference).
All this is admirable. But US private schools can abide by these regulations because they are very different from Britain's. Many private Catholic schools, for example, have a social justice mission and welcome the opportunity to teach low-income and low-achieving children. They can also afford to operate at two-thirds the cost of the state schools because spending per pupil in US private schools averages half the spending in the US state sector. In Britain, by contrast, private schools spend something more than twice as much per pupil. Do British voucher advocates seriously expect Eton, Winchester and the City of London School to educate all-comers at two-thirds the cost of state schools? Frankly, British private schools are not good enough. They want the cheapest, easiest children to educate, which is why they preserve so fiercely "control over the admissions process".
If a British version of the Milwaukee scheme were to involve more than a handful of quirky private schools, it would have to ditch that city's regulations and allow schools to select entrants and charge parents top-up fees. A handful of poor children might benefit if they were lucky enough to be among those chosen for special treatment (and if private schools really are as good as they think they are). But the scheme would more likely end up subsidising from public funds the wealthy parents who already pay private school fees.
Do Britain's voucher advocates know all this? Either they do, in which case they are dissembling, or they don't, in which case they are ignorant. Whatever the truth, we should stop listening to them.
Harry Brighouse is professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and visiting professorial fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London
