A few weeks ago, I pointed out that if the allocation of scarce resources that have competing uses is no longer the province of voluntary market exchange, but state control, it gives all manner of power, sometimes life and death power, to state functionaries. I wrote about the issue of healthcare, but we have had another example here in socialist Britain, in the form of our state education system.
At present, parents who send their children to state schools must send them to a school that operates in a “catchment area”. Parents who want to send their children to a school in a different catchment area cannot do so, except in exceptional circumstances. And much to the comical horror of our educational establishment, some parents have told lies about where they life so they can send their children to the highest-performing schools. The performance figures of school pupils are now published and, while a crude measure of performance in some ways, give parents at least some idea of where the best schools are. And so naturally, parents like to choose the best schools.
Of course, if we scrapped the state schooling system, and gave generous tax breaks or vouchers worth several thousand pounds to any parent with children, they could directly shop around for the best schools, and the whole nonsense of catchment area allocation would disappear. New education entrepreneurs would spring up. The catchment area mentality is partly drawn from a classic piece of egalitarian zero-sum thinking, which goes a bit like this: there are only so many good teachers to go around, and it is wrong that some children should be better schooled than others because of some unjust inequality in the spending power of their parents. But leaving aside the fact that I deny it is unjust for parents to spend as much as they want on their children’s schooling, the fact is that if you give far more choice to parents, competition will drive up the overall standard of schooling, and this, in my view, will disproportionately benefit youngsters from the poorest backgrounds. It is poor children who most need the kind of competition and drive of a school that has to worry about keeping its “customers”. Let’s face it, children from middle class schools will always be able to have some of the benefits of private tuition, etc.
I know that one objection to vouchers is that the state could, presumably, dictate certain standards for any school receiving voucher cash, and might use that power as a way of interfering with education another way. Fair point. To reduce the dangers of that happening, any voucher scheme or tax break system for schools should be accompanied by the obliteration of the current education bureaucracy. This is desirable on a number of grounds, not least for the cuts to state spending. It is, however, folly to imagine that a perfect free market system would be on the table any time soon, but as an intermediary step, greater parental choice, which would be of particularly great value to parents on low or moderate incomes, would be an enormous benefit to society, not just in educational terms, but also as a way of reinforcing the power of parents and of families generally. As some readers might remember me saying before, any such reform should also be accompanied by a reduction in the school leaving age.
But the present system of allocating school places by a rigid geographical formula, and policing it in the current way, is simply unendurable. It is also worth considering something else: in UK society, many of the big spending decisions that people make, either as individuals or as parents, are not mediated through the voluntary exchange of a market, but via the “tax-now and we might give you something in return” route of the state. On education and health – two of the most important issues for us – the role of the private sector is squeezed to the margins. One would have thought that the great growth in the prosperity of the West would have made the involvement of the state in such large areas less necessary than it might have appeared to someone in say, the late 1940s, but judging by this story about schools and catchment areas, the statist mindset is as strong as it was in the era of Clement Attlee.
We are used to all manner of choices in our lives in the West, whether it be our choice of holiday, spouse or computer system. Is it really such a massive leap to hope that parental choice of school will soon be as unremarkable as any other choice we make in our lives?
You know, what this makes me think of is the very enlightening passage in Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle about the difference between established churches (this is the church in your neighborhood or district and you have to go there) and gathered churches (this is the church you choose to attend, for whatever combination of convenience, doctrine, ritual, quality of personnel, and comfort with the congregation matters to you). Stephenson made me realize that there was a sense in which the Puritans, with their belief in gathered churches, took a major step toward freedom of conscience. In just the same way, it seems the UK now has established schools, and to a lesser degree, so does the US . . . and the bad consequences are much the same.
Hurray for vouchers, obviously.
The funny thing is, we have a voucher system for nursery education in the UK (or maybe just England). Broadly speaking, you get about £80 a week per child, non-means tested, non-taxable from the council (I’m not talking about tax credits, that’s all nonsense) which you can redeem at ‘approved’ nurseries, most of which are private and charge between £100 and £150 for a full time place, and people just pay the difference out of their own pockets.
And it works just fine. Parents chat to other parents about what’s a good nursery and so on, and that’s where you send them.
OK, the nursery industry has erected massive red tape barriers to entry so that the value of the vouchers doesn;t get competed away too much, but such is life.
While I mostly agree with your overall point, you are incorrect in your argument. State schools are allowed to define their own entry criteria, which may include a “catchment area” but often doesn’t. Some of the most desirable state schools do not have this.
I had a pretty good choice of state schools for my children, but only really because I’m a regular churchgoing Catholic. Absurd though that may be, I was once rejected from my local state grammar for exactly the same reason, so I don’t lose much sleep over it.
One of my most fervent hopes is that the voucher idea gains traction in the next 5 years, as my wife and I are currently expecting our first.
I’ll certainly be spending whatever it takes to get it a proper education, outside the state sector most likely. It would just be preferable to get some of my own money back in recognition of the burden I will not be putting on the state system.
(We currently live in the US and may be living in New Zealand by the time school age is reached, so when I talk about the idea catching on I’m actually saying that I hope it sweeps the Western world).
Consider the present system. Firstly the government gathers tax for the purpoe, some of which goes to the cost of tax collecting. The money is then sent to the department of Children (!!!) who distribute it to local authorities after having taken out the cost of producing all that advice and instruction for schools to follow. The LEA then adds its own lot of advice/instruction, takes out the cost of doing so and distributes the remainder to schools. With a voucher scheme schools could pay the LEA or Ministry for whatever advice they thought they needed, Now if all that advice and instruction is really as valuable as the Ministry and LEA say it is then they would get the same income. But if not then there would be more money to pay teachers, and less need for bureaucrats- who would then be free to train as teachers as well as having an incentive to do so. So at worst the voucher scheme would produce what we have now- and at best it would allow more teachers from the same resources, so improving general education.
There again the majority of people I know use only reading, writing and arithmatic of all they were taught in schools. Those destined to push a broom, drive a lorry or taxi, be a shop assistant etc. have a pretty good idea who they are- so if they were allowed to start earning once English and Maths had reached an acceptable standard, that would free up teaching time for those who do need a higher standard of educaton. They could be allowed to keep unused vouchers for use either if they decide to return to education, or towards a pension.
The world may end with nostalgia and paper work.
What parents are looking for in a “good school”, though they may not realize it, is not quality teachers or facilities or even school management. What they are really chasing is high performing children.
And even if unconscious, this is a highly effective strategy for maximizing the potential of their kids. There is loads of research as to the power of “peer effects”, which are much more significant than any measurable educational inputs. Teachers, even mediocre ones, tend to teach to the level of ability they find.
The last fifty years of experimental education in the US, which has had a vast array of natural and designed experiments among the 50 states and innumerable semi-independent school districts, plus the last twenty years of various versions of school choice and private or independent management, have yielded no good structural, input or management based formulas. Sorting, however, works.
The great political philosopher John Prescott once said, between mouthfuls of pie, that if you free up education, the danger was that all the children would be sent to the good schools. We must thank him for the clearest demonstration of the socialist mindset ever given. If I ever meet him I shall buy him a chip cone in thanks.
Choice is SO powerful.
When parents have to decide where to send their money AND their child, then suddenly it is essential to compare and contrast… and weigh the costs.
When you really can’t do that, then you just settle for whatever bull the state building down the street dishes up, because you don’t really have a choice and THEY KNOW you don’t….so you probably won’t make too much trouble for them.
I hate state schools.
I hate them so much that I have helped several people with the gargantuan task of starting charter schools. The only thing that sucks more than the work of starting a charter school is listening to your child repeat the stupid stuff that the intellectual bottom feeder in charge of his classroom has told him that day.
I actually believe that children would be better off starting school at 10. NO formal schooling before that unless you pay for it.
But we all know that state education is a code phrase for “state day care”.
Tax people into oblivion and then both parents have to work and the kids have to be SOMEWHERE safe, don’t they?
But it isn’t a safe place if you have an anti-intellectual pretending to “educate” you.
It isn’t safe for your mind or your spirit.
“To reduce the dangers of that happening, any voucher scheme or tax break system for schools should be accompanied by the obliteration of the current education bureaucracy.”
Oh yes – let’s just “obliterate the education bureaucracy” with a wave of our magic blogs. This is not an “intermediary step” Jonathan – not by a country light year, and I dare say you’re fully aware of this. For god’s sake, man.
I think darthlaurel (“I hate them so much that I have helped several people with the gargantuan task of starting charter schools.”) and buwaya (“There is loads of research as to the power of “peer effects”, which are much more significant than any measurable educational inputs.”) point to a way forward without all the horrible deformities of compromise with the State which the voucher system entails.
It certainly wouldn’t be easy, but parents who are lucky enough to work flexible hours, and who wish to homeschool their children could look into homeschooling on a timesharing basis with other like-minded parents and thereby remove themselves from the state system – at least in the US (I don’t know, but somehow doubt, that this is feasible in Britain).
Mike, the states have a very strong, powerful, subversive home schooling culture….not so much in the UK where (I suspect from having lived there for a couple years) the average John and Jane Bull have no real taste for subversion when it comes to their children.
Many home schooling parents, from both sides of the political spectrum, home school because they are able to give their children a superior education AND they are able to ‘stick it to the man’ at the same time.
When your local authorities say, “Give me your children and do it quietly”, and you, quietly, say, “Over your dead body, Ignoramus”, it tends to change the way you view the state.
A sense of subversion is essential to a good home schooling experience and necessary for the culture of the home schooling community. That is not likely to happen easily in the UK.
“A sense of subversion is essential to a good home schooling experience and necessary for the culture of the home schooling community.”
A great point, darthlaurel, but I would both shorten it and expand its meaning as follows: “A sense of subversion is essential to the culture of the community.” There does seem to be a strong streak of that (by no means a majority, of course) in the US polity. I can’t speak to the UK, however.
Mike, cool it. I am not under illusions about how difficult it might be to achieve some kind of change.
We must not forget how government action is directly undermining independent education – not just via taxing people (to fund the government schools), but also via a tidel wave of regulations and paperwork.
Elite schools like Eton can deal with this – but schools that try to provide an education for the children of ordinary people can not.
There is a passionate Home Education community in the UK who are currently under attack, the Government are seeking to impose regulation in a way that undermines our traditional parental responsibility to choose the education of our children.
Some details here
http://homeschooler.org.uk/
and here
http://www.renegadeparent.net/