More on Free Schools
An article in this weekend’s FT criticises the current proposals for the so-called choice agenda in public services. Interestingly this doesn’t seem to be a criticism from the left (i.e. from the perspective that there should be no “market” in public services) but from a more libertarian perspective. The criticism is that the choice isn’t a real one.
On this blog I’ve looked at both health care and education. I’ve sketched out in both some philosophical foundations of a vaguely Kantian approach to policy in both of these areas. In both cases, I’ve concluded that there should be an element of choice because of the requirement to allow an individual to form, revise and pursue a conception of the good and life projects associated with it. In this post I sketch out a possible ‘Charter of Educational Freedom’ that would set out what I believe the limits – under a Kantian conception – of school choice would be. It turns out, however, these freedoms would be significantly beyond what are currently offered. I think the right to pursue a conception of the good is worth emphasising. Those on the traditional free-market right would have “choice” in public services no matter what happens to equity. (The argument goes something along the lines that choice would drive up standards everywhere benefiting all.) Those of the traditional social democratic/socialist persuasion think equity is too great a thing to be sacrificed in the name of choice. The perspective I’ve sketched out in other posts is this: if you take the starting point of all humans deserving equal respect then I, as a good Rawlsian, would argue that you derive two main principles. The first is the equal liberty of all individuals – the liberty to pursue their own ideas of the good life. The second is a requirement for social justice – a fairly heavyweight egalitarianism. (Incidentally, this basically makes me a social or welfare liberal and not a strict socialist. Liberty has priority over equality.) In both health care and education I’ve pointed out a difficult conflict between these two principles. I’ve also suggested policy ideas that might satisfy both the requirement for liberty and social justice. In healthcare I suggested a hybrid between the NHS and a social insurance system, alongside supplementary insurance and state-aided medical savings accounts. And in education I suggested that we might have something like the Dutch system of “free schools”. To start, then, I think we can reject Mr Brittan’s (and similar) arguments for unrestrained choice in public services. Also we should probably reject arguments that any market-like policies in public services are good in themselves (as both the Tories, some Labour members do and you will find on a regular basis in the pages of The Economist). The only reason to accept parts of the choice agenda, then, is because of the basic human right to pursue one’s own conception of the good. Now for something radical: I say, scrape foundation schools and academies. Get rid of them. Instead, reawaken the much older mechanism that the British state used to meet this right – the voluntary aided school. To side-step, in the Netherlands there is a special category of school called the bijzonder onderwijs. These emerged as a result of the religious and political conflicts of the 19th and early 20th century. This meant that individuals had the right to attend or send their children to a school that reflected their educational, religious or philosophical convictions regardless of the position of the state. Pacifists could send their children to schools that emphasised co-operation or student democracy. Certain faiths would be allowed to have their own institutions. It meant that individuals could attend or send their children to a school that followed certain pedagogic methods whether Steiner, Montessori, liberal arts, alternative or otherwise. These special schools in the Netherlands are administered by an independent board, separate from the Government and reflect the convictions of the founders of that board. They are an elaborate compromise. The requirements of freedom of conviction and freedom of pedagogy and organisation have led to a key right guaranteed by the Dutch constitution: the right for anyone to found a school. This led to further conflicts over funding and so, eventually, another constitutional guarantee was included: the right to parity of funding between municipal schools and special schools. Voluntary aided schools in the UK are relatively similar. They are run by an independent trust or organisation, which employs the staff and owns the buildings and appoints a majority of the governing board. However, their freedoms are limited. They cannot opt out of parts of the National Curriculum; they cannot adopt new qualifications that the state does not approve of; and they don’t have specially enumerated rights concerning the determination of school-wide pedagogy and organisation. Crucially, an individual’s right to establish a school according to their own convictions is severely limited and nearly non-existent. So… I’ve drawn up a Charter that enumerates key freedoms in education that I think would be required by a Kantian conception of liberty and equality. (Boring of me, I know.) In drawing it up, I have taken elements directly from various UK Education Reform Acts and also the Dutch constitution (English version, I’m afraid). I might set up a petition, but considering only thirty people read this blog I’m not sure how productive that might be! Essentially, the Charter is based on the three fundamental freedoms of the Dutch constitution: the freedom to establish a school (Article 1), the freedom of conviction (Article 4), and the freedom of pedagogy and organisation (Article 5). Articles 6,7 and 8 are included as derivable from Article 5 and 6. Article 9 is derivable from Article 5. Article 11 is a special guarantee of the freedom, which is the basis of the freedoms in this charter, will regards to the pupils. This would prevent voluntary aided schools from indoctrinating pupils to accept only one conception of the good. It would probably entail, for instance, lessons and educational activities in critical thinking, citizenship, ethics and comparative religion. I’ve also included a clause that would prevent parents and their children attempting to withdrawn from these lessons – for the reason that to do so would undermine the exercise of this civil liberty in the pupil’s adult life. Finally, Article 2 guarantees not only an equality of funding but of financial conditions for both maintained and voluntary aided schools. This would differ from the regime in Denmark, where such “special schools” are funded at a disadvantage to the state maintained sector and, as a result, derive up to a fifth of their income from charging co-payments (or top-up fees). Under this scheme there would be no point to foundation school or, importantly, academies. All of the freedoms (and more) given to those schools would be included under the provisions of becoming a voluntary aided school. Charter to follow in next post. Comments and suggestions, please.
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