Why Free Schools and Academies?

A day or so ago a post that was meant to be an ironic take on free schools, received a comment that, quite rightly, cut through the generalisations to point out something of the background to the development of Free Schools.

Before the May election all of the three parties were promoting education policies that were not a million miles apart. Whether schools in England should be state-run or independent was an issue and is still today. Remember these proposals for both Academies and Free Schools only apply to England however they are decided by a vote in the British Parliament.

The Labour Party, proposed to increase the number of publicly funded but independent academies. Labour also planned legislation that would allow successful head teachers or education providers to partner failing schools or take them over, creating ‘federated’ secondary schools that would be part of a group of schools overseen by a board of trustees.  Where Labour stands today is a question that needs to be answered. Many in the Party were and are vehemently opposed to academy schools of any description.

The Tories went further by proposing that individuals, parents, charities and teacher groups would be able to establish and run new, independent but state funded ‘free schools’.  In addition parents would be able to run local schools threatened with closure. The Tories’ proposals were based on the model of free schools in Sweden and Charter schools in the US, which run independently of the state school system. The second thrust of Tory policy was to extend the Labour Academy legislation to allow existing “outstanding” state schools to become academies.  

The LibDem's policy was to replace Labour’s academies with ‘sponsor managed schools’, which would be independently run but accountable to councils as opposed to central government. They pledged a £2.5bn for a pupil premium to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Incidentally this has come about, but critics point out that the premium is not additional funding.

So all the main political parties seemed to be moving in the direction of creating more independent but publicly funded schools. Why? What proof is there that schools that have a large degree of independence over their management, the curriculum and its delivery promote higher standards?

Sandra McNally, of the London School of Economics, and a Swedish colleague Helena Holmlund have published a paper on Swedish free schools, raising doubts about whether the model would make much difference in the UK. It was published as the former head of Sweden's school inspectors said that free schools had not, in fact, improved Sweden's school results.  Remember that Sweden had few independent fee paying schools when free schools were introduced in !992.  England has a large independent (private) school sector, some 7% of children are educated in private schools.

In Should English schools turn Swedish published in Moneyweek Simon Wilson points out that in Sweden Free Schools are “funded by the state using a voucher system, according to the number of pupils it can attract. Why would this improve the system?

The idea is that increased choice and competition will force up standards in all schools, not just in the free schools and academies. Here, the evidence from Sweden's experience is mixed and contentious. There are now 1,063 free schools in Sweden (18.6% of the total), educating 10% of all pupils. At the upper school level (16- to 19-year-olds) free schools account for 40% of the total. Measured by parental satisfaction, these schools are undoubtedly a success: 90% of parents approve of the education on offer. There is also some evidence that the great fear of free-schools critics – that they will cause other local schools to suffer, by comparison – is unfounded.

In 2006, a major review by the Swedish education agency found that in districts where more than 10% of pupils went to free schools, increased competition raised standards in both free and state sectors. On the other hand, researchers also found that the competition effect declined over time. And 15 years on, even some early pioneers of the free-school movement are sceptical as to its overall effectiveness. Pupil performance across the Swedish system has declined in comparison with international peers. Bertil Ostberg, schools minister in the ruling centre-right coalition, told the FT recently that in the 1990s reformers hoped that through competition all schools would become better. "I wouldn't say that this has failed. But maybe some expectations were too high that this would change the system as a whole."….

The free-market model has not fully worked there because it has proved tough to implement an essential element of competition: closing poor schools. In the face of parental pressure and media opposition, this has proved very hard to do, …but again, there's a lesson from Sweden. Gove and the Tories envisage that local parents and education charities will set up schools, and their plans forbid profit-making companies from running them. Ostberg says that this was the initial vision in Sweden too, but it proved unrealistic and naive. Parents want good schools, but on the whole they don't want to run them; enterprises with capital, economies of scale and brand awareness have proved essential.

Will that happen here? It may have to. Critics on the liberal centre-right (exemplified by a Times leading article this week) argue that the profit motive is important because it drives expansion, and have urged the Tories to reconsider. Swedish free schools (and similar US charter schools) run by profit-making companies do not charge fees, but are still purely state-funded independents, receiving funds according to the number of pupils they can attract.

However, where companies are allowed to make a profit, oversubscribed schools have a natural incentive to open a sister school, rather than build up a waiting list. Moreover, given the constraints on public spending it is unlikely that the UK government will provide start-up capital. So a non-profit policy could prove ineffective in terms of attracting companies to run schools. Who will fund the academies?

In Sweden, free schools are allowed to make a profit, though they do not charge fees. Almost 30% are owned and run by education firms, such as Kunskapsskolan. It runs a chain of 32 schools, and has plans to sponsor two academies in England, in Richmond (in Surrey) and in Suffolk. Edison, the largest provider of state-funded private schools in America, is keen to enter the British market. GEMS, a company based in the United Arab Emirates, which already runs 12 private schools in Britain, is also developing plans to run state-financed free schools. "We are exploring opportunities right now, supporting groups of parents," they told The Guardian.”

So are all those anti-privatisation activists correct to protest against the Tories education plans?   It doesn’t take much imagination to see that Gove would like all education to 16 in the hands of schools independent of local authorities. However to make this happen would be highly contentious, and what to do about the less successful schools? Obviously he is hoping that market forces and parental pressure will make these schools unviable and therefore eventually close.

Where will we be if Gove’s dream comes about?   All schools independent of local authorities, run by a range of providers, each, as is now envisaged with its own ethos, curriculum but centrally funded.  Hmm!  What’s the snag?  Central interference and control maybe?  Gove will need to show that his ideas work, that a newly converted Academy remains outstanding. What better way of doing it than to ensure they are measured by standards imposed from the centre on subjects the content of which are also determined by the centre. He has already retrospectively introduced the English Baccalaureate, as a means of measuring schools achievement.  Expect further developments of this kind.  And by the way what happened to "localism".

Finally  " At the end of the day, though, what makes a school are great teachers and a great head. This might, in the end, be the biggest stumbling block to the Tories' plans because as existing schools already know, great teachers are thin on the ground, and great heads even scarcer. So, no matter how the free school story unfolds, it will always be the professionals who make it work – or not.”