Letting market forces loose on schools – Will it work? Can it be stopped?

Richard Hatcher wrote this piece for Socialist Resistance. The day of the Queen’s speech seems like a good occasion to reprint it.

Five years ago Tony Blair said ‘Education is our best economic policy.’ The employers see it differently. Richard Lambert, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, recently complained that Labour has spent too much time “messing around” with the education system and its high spending strategy has been inefficient. The Guardian (31 December 2009) reported that employers were struggling to recruit people with the right skills, even in the recession. The Economist (5 December 2009) gave Labour’s education policies “some marks for effort” but found academic attainment “shockingly poor”.

The Conservatives’ approach is to let market forces off the leash. They would allow thousands more schools to become academies, primary as well as secondary. Unlike Labour’s 203 existing academies these wouldn’t need sponsors and they wouldn’t get new buildings, but they would be free from local authorities and largely free from the national curriculum. The Times Educational Supplement (23 April 2010) estimates that more than 10% of schools could become academies in the next school year.

Parents, teachers, voluntary organisations and private companies would be able to set up government-funded so-called “free schools” without needing local authority permission. The Conservatives model their proposals on US charter schools and Swedish free schools.

Will this model meet employers’ demands?

Evidence from existing academies and from the US and Swedish models shows they do no better than comparable state schools. The most recent research study of academies’ GCSE results notes that although attainment has risen, changes in GCSE performance in academies relative to matched schools are statistically indistinguishable.¹

At least two sets of GCSEs have now been taken by 74 academies. Of these, 24 academies (32%) saw their results fall between 2008 and 2009, at a time when most schools’ results improved. Some academies have registered above-average levels of improvement, but the principal factor is that they have admitted a higher proportion of children from better-off families, who are statistically more likely to succeed academically. The percentage of students on free school meals in academies has fallen from 45% in 2003 to 29% in 2008.

As for charter schools, “numerous studies have shown that the average charter school performs no better, and in some cases performs slightly worse, than the average public school”.²

The Tories praise the chain of charter schools based on the ‘Knowledge is Power Program’. KIPP undoubtedly results in students from poorer backgrounds achieving significantly higher than their peers in other schools.³ It does so, though, by selecting likely high achievers and teaching 10-hour school days with sessions on Saturdays and in the summer holiday. There is a cost: teacher burn-out resulting from a working week of 65 hours and the expectation that teachers are in contact with students 24/7.

Swedish free schools are non-fee-paying state schools funded by government on a parental voucher basis. Most are chains of schools owned and run by private companies for profit. The most recent evaluation found evidence of only small positive effects.⁴ Per Thulberg, director general of the Swedish National Agency for Education said ‘The students in the new schools have in general better standards, but …they come from well-educated families.’ (Guardian Education 9 February 2010). One consequence is greater social segregation between schools.⁵

Who would run the “free schools”?

The pro-Tory New Schools Network claims that at least 200 parent groups and 100 groups of teachers want to set up schools. Religious organisations, including the Catholic Church, are also interested. However, the most contentious category of providers is for-profit companies. Companies could make a profit from running free schools or academies by operating the school, including the teaching, on a management contract with its owners. (This is already permitted.) Or they could set up for-profit state schools themselves which would require a change in the law.

Kunskapsskolan, the largest for-profit Swedish chain, recently opened an office in London and became the sponsor of two academies in Richmond, presumably positioning itself to move into the for-profit market in England when government policy allows.

What would be the impact of the Tory programme?

· Academies and free schools would be outside the local authority system of schools, so they wouldn’t be locally accountable.

· An incoherent patchwork of competing schools would make local planning of provision impossible,

· The unrestricted creation of new schools, all chasing the same pupils, would force many existing schools to close down for lack of numbers.

· Local authorities would be reduced to a residual role, responsible only for the rump of schools which chose not to take the academy route.

· The cost would be enormous – paid for by existing schools by taking £4.5 billion from the Building Schools for the Future building programme.

· Academies and free schools employ their own staff and are free to ignore national and local union agreements. The pay and conditions of teachers and other school workers would worsen and trade unions would be undermined.

· ‘Diversity and choice’ in the Tory schools market will reinforce even more social segregation and inequality in education than exists at present.

What looks likely to happen?

A number of factors may work against the Conservative programme for schools being implemented.

If the Tories need Liberal Democrat support they are likely to have to make concessions. The Lib Dems support private providers of state schools, but commissioned and regulated by local authorities and they are silent on the for-profit issue.

Schools may not want to become academies if there is no new building as an incentive, and if the freedom is not much greater. Many would prefer to remain part of a local authority. Also, there may not be sufficient private providers of free schools to create market competition because these schools may not be considered potentially profitable enough.

Nor is it sure that enough parents will choose academies and free schools. Standards may be no better than in existing local schools. And the Kunskapsskolan model, which makes a profit by employing fewer qualified teachers and providing minimal facilities, including using converted office blocks as schools, may not attract many parents.

All in all the cost to the government of funding lots of surplus school places may be too high in a period when it is making deep spending cuts.

The bottom line
for Tory education policy is whether the schools market can deliver the future workforce employers demand, or whether it will need much more state intervention. There is a tension within Tory education thinking between the “free marketers” currently in the ascendancy, and the “industrial modernisers” who want government to gear the school system much more directly to employers’ needs through Kenneth Baker’s programme of university technical colleges.

How can schools be defended?

Widespread collective opposition could yet nip the Tories’ plans in the bud. Already there has been significant opposition to Labour education policies, led by the campaigns against academies and SATs. With the attacks on pay and conditions that are certain to come the grounds for opposition will multiply.

Unions will be defending their members, and their own existence, against the determined attempts of academy and free school management to break them. Parents will be angry at their schools losing their promised Building Schools for the Future funding to pay for free schools being set up to compete with them.

There is the basis here for a mass movement to defend our schools. We need to start building that movement straight away.

References

1. Machin, S. and Wilson, J. (2009) Academy Schools and Pupil Performance. CentrePiece, 14:1 6-8, p.8.

2. Bendor, J., Bordoff, J. and Furman, J. (2007) An Education Strategy to Promote

Opportunity, Prosperity, and Growth. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, p.14.

3. Educational Policy Institute (2005) Focus on results: An academic impact analysis of the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP). Virginia Beach, VA: Educational Policy Institute.

4. Bohlmark, A. and Lindahl, M. (2008) Does School Privatisation Improve Educational Achievement? Evidence from Sweden’s Voucher Reform, IZA Discussion Paper No. 3691. Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor, p.1)

5. Skolverket (the Swedish National Agency for Education) (2006) Schools like any other? Independent schools as part of the system 1991-2004. Stockholm: Skolverket, p.51.