Conservative commitments - 4, 4 fails

4.   Open 500 more free schools

A free school in this context is a type of academy, which is a not-for-profit, independent, state-funded school. It is free to attend but not controlled by the local authority. Free schools are funded per pupil in the same way as state schools, but receive start-up grants.

The goal of free schools is to improve education by putting parents and interested groups in charge of it rather than teachers and experts working for the DfE. They are also expected to increase local competition, which is regarded as the only force that can drive up standards.

There is a host of issues with this policy, starting with government waste. Government is funding this competition with normal government-funded state schools, in effect duplicating its effort. Some companies run internal competition, but I have yet to see anyone who thinks it’s wise for a company to compete directly with itself for precisely the same market. Yet this policy is supposed to bring efficient business practices to government. The start-up costs for 500 schools will be immense and will be wasted. Free schools often start in areas where no new school is needed, ensuring that pre-existing government buildings that have been maintained for the purpose of education are rendered redundant even if the free school is a success.

We require teachers to have qualifications for a reason; it’s a basic standard to ensure acceptable teaching across the country. If this is a bad idea, school heads could be freed from the requirement without needing to set up new schools just to experiment with unqualified teachers.

Free schools require proposals from keen people. The people who are keenest, and able to negotiate the paperwork and project management to start a new school, are those who are either already well-off or have a specific desire to indoctrinate children. The well-off want to create high-performing schools with just their own children, who will do well anyway due to parental support; this helps explain the few results where free schools have been found to have higher performance. Indoctrination of children, such as for religious reasons, is a bad thing and should not be supported. Children are not parents’ property, to be fed ideas that their parents have chosen. They should be educated as independent people who will grow into independent, free-thinking adults.

Either way, free schools won’t help poor children who have little money or parental support. Children rely on their parents to make good choices. The problem we already have is with parents who cannot or will not make good choices for their children. Providing more choice simply will not help; it will help leave poor children behind.