On school choice, the rest of the world is moving in the right direction, while Labour proposes the opposite. But the Government even funds private schools for poor children in Africa. So why not here?
In his blog, Dan Mitchell writes approvingly of school choice developments in U.S. states. It’s based on this report, the American Legal Exchange Council’s (ALEC) ‘Index of State Education Freedom’, which starts:
The COVID-19 pandemic sparked a complete reimagining of how and where students are taught around the country. More importantly, the pandemic sparked a national realisation that our current ‘one-size-fits-all’ system of public education simply does not work for too many students. While there are plenty of students who perform at their highest level in their local public schools, there are also many who would perform better in an alternate educational environment. Parents are best positioned to know where and how their children learn best, so we must empower them with as many educational choices as possible
Amen. Teaching (unlike, say, brain surgery and cancer care) isn’t rocket science. We’ve all been to school and can remember what makes for a good teacher, a good classroom, a good school. At work, we’ve learned, developed, watched others coach and lead, and coached and led others. This is not to say we could all step into a primary school class tomorrow and start teaching them to read, or to multiply. But we could pretty quickly identify whether the teacher is any good and whether the children are engaged.
Where choice exists, parents have the incentive to learn how to identify good schools. School choice empowers parents to drive up standards – not only in their ‘preferred’ schools, but across the board.
So why shouldn’t we have choice?
Who has school choice?
So here’s the (growing) list of U.S. states – 18 in all – with a direct school choice programme in the form of “education scholarship account programmes”, where dollars follow students’ parents’ choices: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, South Carolina and Utah – with Texas reportedly on the way!
For an international perspective, there’s also school choice in Canada, Chile, the Netherlands and Sweden.
As I wrote here, Denmark, France and Germany have a variety of private sector provisions that support school choice within state-funded provision – like a mix of grammar schools and academies.
We love school choice in poor countries
Another excellent read is The Beautiful Tree, where James Tooley explores private education in the slums of Nigeria, China, Ghana, Kenya and India – finding that fee-charging, profit-seeking, low-cost private schools are often strongly preferred by poor people, and deliver better outcomes, compared to free state- or NGO-funded alternatives. Based on Tooley’s evidence, the U.K. Government’s Department for International Development (DFID) started to spend British taxpayers’ money on private providers, using vouchers, so that parents in poorer countries could have school choice. How sensible.
That’s right: British taxpayers’ money spent on school choice in the – boo hiss – profit-seeking private sector abroad, but not at home.
Labour’s VAT plan means less choice
My aim in my blog is to call for good schools, as many good schools as possible. Taxing independent education harms good schools. It stands to reduce choice in three ways:
- Fewer parents will be able to afford private education; they will be forced into state provision which certainly won’t offer much, if any choice. At best, there won’t be places in over-subscribed ‘good’ state schools. At worst places may not be locally available at all, or manageable without significant change to parents’ domestic and professional circumstances.
- If and when some private schools close, even parents willing and able to absorb the VAT cost will lose the choice to do so as the school will no longer exist; some of those parents will also be forced into state provision.
- Parents currently unable or unwilling to pay fees will face greater future competition for their ‘preferred’ places at
freetaxpayer-funded grammar schools, religious schools, academies, free schools and top catchment areas; a greater proportion will in turn be disappointed. Those places will become even more financially exclusive (via pricey catchment areas) than they already are.
Which countries’ example to follow?
So we could follow the example of 18 U.S. states and Canada, Chile, the Netherlands and Sweden, and even Denmark, France and Germany. We could offer more British children what we’ve paid for some African children to enjoy.
Or we could follow Labour in wanting to tax education and reduce school choice.
Mr. Chips is a pseudonym for an employee of a private school. This article first appeared on his Substack page.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
And yet ‘he’ wanted another 4 years … or rather the Biden whisperers did.
Now that’s disinformation.
But why, exactly, do America’s real rulers want creatures like the Biden-dolt or the Harris-halfwit to be president of the United States? What’s the gain they’re hoping for?
But the puppeteer gets all of the control without appearing in public.
They’re just brainwashed, and have totally swallowed the relentless “Orange Man Bad” propaganda.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that the media lies like a cheap watch some people still switch on and watch it, and believe it.
As (Twain?) said, “It is easier to fool someone than to convince them they have been fooled.”
Now Orange Man is pretty far from perfect, but given the alternative he positively shines in comparison. And I don’t recall the division there is now under POTUS 45.
As an aside, if anyone fancies some mild entertainment, check out The Dor Brothers on YouTube. It’s absolutely stunning, and not a little unnerving.
Or Dark Brandon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ3r_qu7TWc
Lots of money obviously.
Because it’s a good legitimate cover for their behind the scenes looting spree
Poor old sod thought he was President of the USA.
I don’t think he even thought that!
So, and we have people… and listen, there are people who…. so. Ah shucks… And America, Medicare has foreign… Coming through the door of this great… Huh. Syria, Russia, Guatemala, Germany, Chile, the President has, er… It’s vital that the planet air y’see. Children need er… OK that’s me done here. God Bless! They’re telling me…. er…. now where was it… IT’S NOT RIGHT! KEEP … ER … Ok folks…
What worries me is just what the Biden administration is doing in its last days to compromise the Trump presidency.
We have the same mental incapacity problem here, but at the other end of the age scale. Our ‘leaders’ are immature adolescents who only have one skill, which is to shout out loudly everthing that their superiors have told them to…
And a total inability to practise critical thinking.
Peter Mandelson to be the next ambassador to the U.S;
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/peter-mandelson-uk-ambassador-us-donald-trump-b2667479.html
The whispering snake, as portrayed on Spitting Image.
“The extent of Jeffrey Epstein’s contact with former UK cabinet minister Lord Peter Mandelson is laid bare in a newly released report that describes repeated meetings between the disgraced financier and the politician he knew as “Petie”. The internal JPMorgan report from 2019, filed to a New York court on Tuesday, found that “Jeffrey Epstein appears to maintain a particularly close relationship with Prince Andrew the Duke of York and Lord Peter Mandelson, a senior member of the British government”.
https://www.ft.com/content/07238b43-48e6-4e7b-96d2-d50a4ada4646
Excellent that this has been published, just at the right moment.
The Dark Lord rises again.
Not just the White House. Almost all of the media also covered up his dementia.
It’s hard to decide where the biggest crooks and liars reside: politics, or the MS media?
They hid it during the 2020 Presidential campaign. He was already suffering from dementia when he was nominated, which is why they kept him locked in the basement until the votes were counted.
Votes counted and then the required additional votes printed and counted.
Nope they didn’t hide it. —-We could all see it.
Yes, “we” could all see it, but there are so many grifters and useful idiots in the USA and in the world who found it in their interest to ignore and go along with the lie.
Communists want power. It doesn’t matter to them if the power is competent. They are evil minded simpletons.
Given that Belgium prospered for many years with no government at all, it is possible to argue that cabbages, lettuces, octopii and other seers might make the best governors of all; benevolent despots that at least offer decent nutrition as expiation for policy blunders?
Dementia does not appear overnight and is progressive. It is certain his wife and family members and close associates knew this before he stood for election.
Anyone observing and paying attention – public, media – seeing the obvious signs during his Presidency would work backwards and realise this. The White House doctor would certainly have been aware from day one of the Presidency of his condition.
The cover-up started before the Primaries electing him as candidate.