Parents, businesses and community groups are being encouraged to set up schools by the coalition government.
Reforms based on a ‘free schools’ model already prevelant in Sweden were among the most notable measures announced in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech.
Parents dismayed by state school provision in their local area will be able to set up their own schools free of local authority control but attract the same per-pupil state funding as regular comprehensives. Formulated by the Conservatives and accepted by their Lib Dem partners, the plans are aimed at widening parental choice and driving up standards by liberating headteachers from local-authority control and bureaucracy.
Comprehensives that lag behind will theoretically lose out to free schools and their intakes will fall. Proponents argue that struggling schools will either be forced to catch up or close, thus giving high-performing free schools more scope to expand and creating more demand for new independent schools.
The news will be welcomed by several parent groups around the country that have already began drawing up plans for new schools.
The government wants to change planning laws to make it easier for community groups to take over disused public sector buildings
The government also wants to change planning laws to make it easier for community groups to take over disused public sector buildings.
With the state system widely believed to be in need of an overhaul – vindicated further by the fact that the new Cabinet is predominantly privately-educated – the model is attracting plenty of support. However, the less than spectacular results of the Swedish experiment mean there’s no shortage of misgivings too.
Fifteen years after the Swedes devolved power to parents and the private sector, pupil performance across the Swedish system has actually deteriorated by international standards. Critics also point out that the Swedish model is extremely well funded, thanks to a high tax regime widely accepted as a price worth paying among the populace.
The UK of course has a mountainous public debt to reduce, and although education spending has been ring-fenced, UK counterparts to Swedish independents have no hope of anything remotely approaching their funding levels.
Sponsorship could help bridge the gap, but rules over commercial influence over free schools are actually going to tighter in the UK than in Sweden. That will at least reassure those who fear the proliferation of fizzy drinks and confectionary vending machines on premises as the price for funding from companies like Coca Cola, as is common in the US.
Nevertheless, a founder 14 scucessful free schools in Sweden says her first school was established “on a shoestring”, and relied on donations of money and equipment. Barbara, founder and owner of International English Schools, says "We do leave a lot of schools in the dust. But we also provide competition. The other schools have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps."
Journalist Toby Young is the most high profile parent to want to emulate pioneers like Bergstrom. A passionate advocate of the free schools model, the author of How to Lose Friends & Alienate People was driven to set one up after being dismayed by state provision in the area he lives in West London.
Another potential stumbling block, and one a great unknown that dogs the entire ‘Big Society’ agenda, is that that there might not be enough parents and charitable organisations with the interest, means and skills to set up such schools. But this is countered by the fact that Young’s project has attracted the support of around 500 parents from the Acton area.
Critics, however, insist that only middle-class parents will have the time, contacts and confidence to set up such schools, and will only want their offspring and middle class peers to attend. However, the West London Free School’s vision is to be “renowned for academic excellence, and capable of instilling world-beating ambition in all its students, no matter what their background.” Young believes that working class children whose parents cannot afford private education will still be able to obtain a superior education.
Some observers of the Swedish experience suggest, though, there is scant evidence that such schools will give them a better education. Even one of the architects of the model admits it didn’t meet their high expectations. Bertil Ostberg, schools minister in the ruling centre-right coalition, says that although "I wouldn't say that this has failed but maybe some expectations were too high that this would change the system as a whole."
Use the growth of free schools as a barometer of success, however, then the policy is flourishing. Since their introduction in 1995 they’ve multiplied steadily and now account for 40% of upper secondary schools, suggesting their proving popular and drawing pupils away from state schools.
One reason put forward for why educational performance hasn’t therefore risen, is that those badly performing schools which lost pupils to nearby free schools were often not closed, despite being undercapacity. Parental and media pressure put paid to attempts to close them, thus leaving space for more independent schools, even though the schools were often operating at well under their capacity.
Academy status
The coalition’s ambitious education plans also want to create more autonomy among existing schools. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has also written to all 20,000 headteachers of state schools offering them the chance to break free from local authority control. This would enable them to cut bureaucracy and raise standards, he said.
“I would like in due course, academy status to become the norm,” Mr Gove said.
“What we are talking about is permissive, it’s about saying to heads ‘It’s up to you’.”
Schools rated as “outstanding” in OFsted reports will be given the opportunity to become academies immediately.
The academies model is similar to the grant-maintained schools system set up under John Major’s administration in the mid-1990s but reined back under state control by Tony Blair.
