I think one of the biggest mistakes made by Classical Liberals in Britain was to allow (and, indeed, encourage) the government to start funding education in the 19th Century. He who pays the piper calls the tune and it was only a matter of time before the government took over education and began to run it as the state monopoly we are still lumbered with today.
As with all these monolithic government services they are indifferent to the needs of their customers, exisitng primarily as fiefdoms of a professional education establishment. Well-to-do families can afford to escape the system but not so modest income and poor families whose children are left victimised by the shambolic sausage factories through which they are processed.
To date, there has been insufficient challenge to this state monopoly but that could all be about to change. Last night I had the pleasure of meeting James Stansfield at the October ‘Putney Debate’ hosted by Tim Evans. James works with the famous James Tooley, a former socialist who has seen the light and now campaigns for a free market in education. Together they have established the EG West Centre at the University of Newcastle; an academic research body dedicated to spreading radical ideas about the provision of education by means other than the state.
The man after whom the project is named, EG West, was a British-born academic who did most of his work in Canada in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Swimming completely against the tide of the received wisdom of that era, this man who concluded, from his meticulously documented research, that state education was a disaster. Unsurprisingly, he was pilloried by the rest of academia and the education establishment as some kind of dangerous madman before being proved absolutely correct.
West’s legacy is a comprehensive set of ideological and analytical tools which are now being wielded by the likes of Messrs Stansfield and Tooley with a view to revolutionising public policy. James Stansfield is clearly passionate about his mission which he described in detail at last night’s meeting.
It seems there is both good news and bad news.
The good news is that governments all over the world are getting so exasperated at their own failure to deliver that they are willing to consider any other alternatives on offer from the private sector. This is particularly the case with developing countries like India where the government is so desperate to get their people educated that they have entirely jettisoned all the old ideological baggage and are happy for the free market to let rip. James was also very enthusiastic about the widespread Home-Schooling movement in the USA and the burgeoning movement in the UK.
The bad news is that there appears to be very little chance in the immediate future of any headway being made in Britain where the government still clings tenaciously to the old ideal of centralised control despite its increasingly apparent failings. James was of the opinion that the government is still very much in thrall to the left on this issue. Elsewhere, organisations such as The World Bank and UNESCO are vigourously lobbying Third World governments to establish universal, compulsory state education i.e. to make the same mistake we have made in the West. [James kept referring to these people, sarcastically, as ‘Charming purveyors of love’ so I took the liberty of introducting him to the term ‘Tranzi’]
But the very fact that there is both good and bad news means that battle is being enjoined and that victory is out there to be won. With the EG West Centre we have the equivalent of a mechanised infantry division on our side.
This is not just a British issue, it is a universal issue and, if you have any interest at all in education, then I strongly recommend that you take a look at the highly informative EG West Centre website linked to above and spread to the word.
Once again it is proven: if one wants the most expensive, least efficient, least productive, and most destructive method of doing ANYTHING, put it in the hands of the professional politicians and their clever, job-preservationist lackeys in the bureaucracy.
“A tax-funded education voucher in the broadest sense is a payment made by the government to a school chosen by the parent of the child being educated; the voucher finances all or most of the tuition charged.”
Sorry it all goes wrong right from the off. Any kind of state funding for education. Keeps education firmly where it is…In the hands of the state.
Immediately obvious from this will be the fact that schools will have to apply to the government to be eligible to accept vouchers. Therefore the state will stipulate what is taught etc etc and the system carries on it’s merry way. Schools need to be completely independent of the state in order for competition to thrive and choice to be given.
There is no adequate halfway house.
imho.
I agree with Mike that there is indeed no adequate half way house. The state simply has no business at all being involved with education.
Aloha,
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The public is wise to prefer incremental change. Perhaps the State shouldn’t be in the education business, but it is. Vouchers would be an improvement over the current policy in many IS States, which restricts a parent’s options for he use of the taxpayers’ K-12 education subsidy to schools poerated by gvernment employees. Vouchers, however, threaten the independence of private and parochial schools. For this and other reasons, I prefer a policy I call “Parent Performance Contracting”. This requires a bit of legislation, mandating that State school authorities –must– hire parents, on personal service contracts, to provide for their children’s education. Make payment equal to, say, 2/3 of the per-pupil cost of State schools, and make payment contingent on performance at or above age-level expectations on standardized tests of Math and literacy (any language). Parents could then homeschool, hire a tutor or the neighbors’ daughter, or pay tuition to a parochial school. This provides financial and performance accountability, with minimal threat to the independence of non-State schools.
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Malcolm Kirkpatrick
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Will the Lib. Purity Police stop an 80% good change because it’s not 100%?
Vouchers have already been politically chosen over tax credits–to help the poor (among other excuses). Yes, there will be state requirements on any school accepting vouchers. But getting a lot of parental choice is SO much better than the current situation (especially in the US, not sure of UK; not so true of Slovakia, yet), that vouchers AND tax credits AND ending state involvement can all be argued for.
In addition, 90-100% tax credits as donations to schools should also be argued for (so the local non-parents can support schools). But it’s necessary to take a step of movement to get moving “in the right direction”, so that immobile inertia is overcome.
And the focus should always be on testing the students, not the curriculum or even the teachers; with the test results widely publicised. This will be the strongest pressure on the gov’t (please not “public”) schools.
~Tom