The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Are free schools really widening choice?

Parents who want a new local school are offered a free school or nothing.

By Richard Morris Published 20 July 2012 14:12

Education Secretary Michael Gove. Photograph: Getty Images.

Education Secretary Michael Gove at The Royal Courts of Justice to give evidence to the Leveson inquiry earlier this year. Photograph: Getty Images.

While many in my party are opposed to free schools in principle, I am reluctant to man the barricades on every occasion one is approved. I am sure many of the schools offer a fine education, with nuanced but important variations from the national curriculum that parents think important and children find stimulating and exciting. Nor do I think Michael Gove is the devil incarnate for introducing them – I suspect he is sincerely trying to improve educational standards in the way he thinks is best, even if I don’t agree with all he is doing (by a long shot).

I do, however, question the assumption that the free school movement is all about parental choice. That’s not how it feels to me.

In my own area, Zac Goldsmith hosted a public meeting a couple of weeks ago to tell local parents that the money promised for a new local education authority school had gone down the plughole with the demise of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme – and that the only realistic way in which central government funding would be secured to deliver a desperately needed new school would be if a successful bid for a free school was made. Two other choices were mentioned – to cut £25 million from other local services or to add five per cent to council tax. Neither seemed attractive. Thus the choice on offer appears to be: "it’s a free school - take it or leave it".

After I wrote about this, Zac has tweeted to me that the free school funding option offers more parental choice than under BSF. Again, that’s not how I see it. Under the free school movement, there may well be multiple local applications for a new school – but the choice of which type of school will emerge rests not with parents but with the Education Secretary, who will ultimately decide which sort of school is best.

I’m also concerned that the Lib Dems are being slightly complacent about all this. Nick Clegg told the Social Liberal Forum conference on Saturday that he had stopped Gove putting free schools "everywhere". I promise you, Nick, if you have, it doesn’t feel like it on the ground.

If parental choice was at the centre of this programme, parents would first be asked if they wanted an LEA or centrally-funded school, before then being asked what changes they would like to see on that school’s curriculum from the standard. But currently, as one councillor said publicly the other week, "I have to have a new school and I’m going to do whatever I have to in order to get it built, even if I end up having to call it ‘The Michael Gove Free School’".

Which would actually not be such a bad strategy when you consider who is actually going to end up making the choice …

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Tags: Free Schools Michael Gove Education

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10 comments

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Sat, 2012-07-21 11:19 — Steve AM (not verified)

No they don’t but I can see that they will close children’s minds to a narrow view of society and others. They are storing up problems for the future.

Sat, 2012-07-21 12:15 — freeethinker (not verified)

But the real problem is that education in this country has been closing children's minds for well over a century.

When the state decided that we needed an educated elite to run the empire and a semi educated class of workers to run the factories, the system of public education was designed to select those prospective elite members and educate them well. The rest were to receive the rudiments that would enable them to function in industry without threatening social stability.

Many 'reforms' later, the system still aims at finding those fit to educate to university standard whilst a significant number of the rest see no relevance at all at what they are taught.

The 1944 Education Act might well have broken this long and massive waste of human resources by introducing a tripartite system of grammar schools, technical schools and modern schools but most local authorities chose to ignore the technical schools.

Comprehensives seemed a great improvement on the bipartite system of grammar schools and moderns, but they ended up perpetuating the attempt to select an academic elite whilst ignoring the needs of many of the rest. The fact that this most progressive of educational legislation of the past century came from a Conservative government causes me to despair at how far we have moved along the market road in the past thirty years.

Sun, 2012-07-22 12:01 — Red Rain (not verified)

Don't despair there are millions of well-educated people working in Industry we are not all troglodytes, some of us can actually read and write some can even count.

Sun, 2012-07-22 11:55 — Red Rain (not verified)

Don't despair there are millions of well-educated people working in Industry we are not all troglodytes, some of us can actually read and write some can even count.

Sat, 2012-07-21 11:09 — Briar (not verified)

Oh good grief - why do we still cling to the neoliberal fig-leaf of "choice"? Being able to go to a school run by ntters who believe the bible account of creation is no substitute for going to a neighbourhood school with first rate teachers and resources who give all pupils a first rate education - as opposed to indoctrination. Arguing for anything else is just a cover for deciding that supplying excellence to everyone is just too expensive for The Holy Taxpayer to contemplate.

Fri, 2012-07-20 20:27 — Nertry (not verified)

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Fri, 2012-07-20 16:31 — Karl-L (not verified)

I am wondering whether there is a provision in Gove's policy for free-schools to revert to or opt-in to LEA control? If so then I would imagine a potential strategy to get a new LEA school built would be to secure funding for a free-school and then opt-in to LEA? Though I guess Gove would try and block this kind of thing from happening..

Fri, 2012-07-20 16:42 — RichardMorrisUK

Well, in North Kingston's case the application is being made jointly by the council, and two local higher education facilities, one of which is the University. If successful therefore there would still be an element of LEA 'control' as one of the franchise holders. However of course, it will be interesting to see if Gove would ever pass a proposal for a free school from an LEA (I am not sure there is any precedent for this) and whether or how the bid needs to vary from the 'norm' in order to get approved.

I say 'interesting' but when this is kids education you're talking about, it seems wrong to be looking at the process as an experiment...

Fri, 2012-07-20 16:42 — RichardMorrisUK

I say 'interesting' but when this is kids education you're talking about, it seems wrong to be looking at the process as an experiment...