“Might it be a good idea to inspect for educational standards too? Personally, I wouldn’t want the state to fund the teaching of extreme religious views without regulating the curriculum; could we think about how to avoid that?”

In our recent report, we have set out a suggested level of regulation for Free Schools: http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/prcs75.php

The way I think about it is that state should have a similar regulatory relationship with Free Schools as it does with restaurants, since both the “quality” of food and education are very constestable and ought to be freely constested, discussed and challenged in any liberal society. The purpose of the state is to ensure that basic standards are maintained, rather than to hand out michelin stars in the case of restaurants or set education objectives for schools. Just imagine how plain and dull restaurants would be if their quality were regulated by the state rather than the independent judgements of the public operating within a market.

Of course, you will get a handful of schools teaching ideas that the mainstream disapprove of. But if you allow genuine choice (rather than the “picking winners” element of setting up academies as it is at the moment), they will be marginal by definition. People worry about creationism becoming a feature of religious schools. I don’t think there is a significant demand for such education in the UK and that given the choice, parents will tend to opt for genuine subject knowledge rather than irrational dogma. The irony is that, under the current state system, many schools don’t even teach scientific knowledge in any depth, which in the long term will make the children FAR MORE exposed to superstitious belief systems. I would rather have a free system that can improve standards while occasionally throwing up a few oddities on the margins than the current system which is slowly condemning many children to greater and greater ignorance as adults.

Unless you take some risks nothing will ever change. By properly rewarding those who succeed, you can improve the overall outcome. The State has a record of mediocrity.

“A Criminal Records Bureau enhanced check would have turned up the police investigation.”

Ray Lewis hasn’t been convicted of any offences in the UK so he’d have come up clean on a CRB check, whether enhanced or not.

(1) Nick, thanks for your response. I haven’t read the full report, but will do so.

The analogy with restaurants is an interesting one. The state regulates to prevent food poisoning; it would need to guard against those who might. And that is broadly the way in which, say, weekend voluntary activities involving children – football clubs, and guides and scouts, and dance classes, etc – are regulated.

But are schools like that? If they are, why do we do something we don’t do for voluntary activities or restaurants, and make universal taxpayer-funded education available to all? Beyond that, education structures opportunity and access to positional goods in our society rather heavily. Restaurants reflect that; it is difficult to see that they shape it.

You suggest that ideas that most people disapprove of will, by definition, be marginal. But this goes to the heart of several contested debates: tensions between choice and integration, collective choices and minority rights. For example, would you allow schools schools to choose or admit pupils on any basis they wanted, or what restrictions would apply to that?

(2) perdix. Thanks. One of my questions is where is the evidence?

(3) inks – It has been reported – in the Standard and elsewhere that Lewis was arrested on one of the financial issues, and that this would have shown up on an enhanced CRB check. (I don’t have information to verify whether he was, so may be wrong about this). The broader point that the vetting was lax and insufficient has been accepted by those involved, based on what they have said to the Sunday papers.

“For example, would you allow schools to choose or admit pupils on any basis they wanted, or what restrictions would apply to that?”

In our report, I have suggested the opposite: Free schools should have no powers of selection (apart from schools for SEN children). They would admit pupils on a first-come-first-served basis, with the one exception of allowing siblings of children already attending a school a greater priority.

We have suggested a few other inclusion mechanisms as well, in order to ensure that lower income families have a greater chance of making a choice. If you send over someone to our office, I would be happy to give them a copy of the report. Otherwise, please email me on nick dot cowen at civitas dot org dot uk.

Reading the letter received from the Bishop of Chelmsford would have turned up the police investigation, with the added bonus that it was *free*.

This chap, Ray Lewis, apparently passed the tests to be a Magistrate. Either the concept of ‘known to the Police’ – which is hateful – has been abandoned, or he is squeeky clean.

If I were put in the position of defending myself, I’d have thought that clearing the hurdle of magesterialism would be a pretty strong defence. Apparently, Ray and I are wrong.

Am I alone in finding Nick Cowen’s equating of schools with restaurants deeply offensive?

It’s perfectly possible to live a fulfilled life without entering a restaurant, even if almost all of us do so from time to time.

Education is completely different: it’s a need, like clean water, and any State which fails to organise the best available education for its young people may rightly be deemed a failed state. The other salient point is that you only get one childhood – go to a bad school and you’re knocked back, to a greater or lesser extent, for life. Go to a bad restaurant and at worst you’re ill for a few days.

That is not to say that the State should have a monopoly of provision, although that may indeed be necessary to achieve policy goals. But before we consider that, we need to look at those goals themselves. All sides in the debate agree that every child should have the best possible start in life. But one of the reasons why this is not so is that not every child has parents who take the same degree of interest in them, or their education – which is why “Sure Start” was founded.

The promotion of equality would imply discrimination in favour of children whose parents are wholly or emotionally absent. That has only to be stated for its absurdity, at the level of practical politics, to be apparent. So we must, sadly, accept that some children will be disadvantaged. How much control can politics exercise over that? How would we know when we had reduced the level of disadvantage to a minimum?

If anyone knows of an analysis that addresses these questions head-on, please point me towards it.

I think that is a misunderstanding on Inks’s part (sorry if slightly off topic)

I absolutley make no comment on the allegations surrounding Mr Lewis and his resignation however I must draw attention to the fact that a CRB Check does not only list convictions of an individual but many other types of reports (POVA, POCA, LIST 99, Cautions, warnings etc) from different agencies including the Police that can be used to judge the fitness of an individual to carry out different roles. In the roles that Mr. Lewis has been in throughout his career, I would have thought that not undertaking an Enhanced CRB check as soon as he was working with a organisation entitled to carry out the check would have been less than responsible if he has/had routine unsupervised access to persons deemed “vulnerable”.

I would say that perhaps, if not already, the Mayor’s Office should be reviewing it’s policy on who has/ should recieved a CRB check, enhanced or not if they are likely to come into regualr contact with people deemed “vulnerable” and that Mr Lewis would have definitely falllen into one of the groups listed here http://www.crb.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=1855

from the CRB website full details http://www.crb.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=1871

“A CRB check can provide access to a range of different types of information, such as, information:

held on the Police National Computer (PNC), including Convictions, Cautions, Reprimands and Warnings in England and Wales, and most of the relevant convictions in Scotland and Northern Ireland may also be included. (The CRB reserves the right to add new data sources. For the most up to date list of data sources which are searched by the CRB click here):
held by local police forces and other agencies, relating to relevant non-conviction information;
from the Government’s Protection of Children Act List (PoCA), where applicable;
from the Government’s Protection of Vulnerable Adults List (PoVA), where applicable; and
held by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) under Section 142 of the Education Act 2002 (formerly known as List 99), where applicable. ”

http://www.crb.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=1871

“Am I alone in finding Nick Cowen’s equating of schools with restaurants deeply offensive?”

Well I was giving an example of well-functioning regulation, rather than suggesting that restaurants and schools are equivalent in any other respects. I don’t see why a comparison like that is “offensive”, if the point is merely to establish the optimum level of regulation to deliver quality. But abstract the point from restaurants to food in general (obviously a primary resource rather than a luxury): we have a market in food provision and I don’t think people seriously suggest nationalising supermarkets, shops and grocers. The debate is instead about giving everyone access to the food market and ensuring that monopolies do not develop.

By contrast, in education, the general assumption even on the liberal left up until recently is that education should be provided by a state monopoly (for which opting out of state provision is an expense only those with an especially high income can afford). As often happens in the case of near monopolies, provision has become quite poor, and this impacts on the low income families the worst because they lack the resources to supplement the education that they are offered by the state.

But I would recommend my report if you are interested in this debate since I do try to tackle exactly those questions that you are raising. Unity has reviewed it on here: https://liberalconspiracy.org/2008/06/16/swedish-lesson/

[9] Thanks, Nick.

However I still think that food and education differ in this: with food the customer makes lots of little purchases, so can change behaviour at low cost – this is why the food market works pretty well from the consumer standpoint and as you rightly say everyone is happy to leave it in the private sector. (It works less well for producers, though, which is why there is – more abroad than here – a co-operative sector, particularly to secure distribution.) Education is a “market” in which consumers make a very few decisions each of which has major long-term consequences. What’s more, in the school sector consumption takes place by proxy: I know of no economic theorisation which addresses the issues which flow from this.

Again, I am willing to be enlightened…

Restaurant regulation does not operate at the ‘optimum level to deliver quality’ but rather at the optimum level to deliver safety. School regulation should, it seems, have more demanding ‘end goals’ that requier something greater than the provision of safe environments. Regardless, I don’t think that the debate is really one about how valid a copmarision is between the regulation of schools and restaurants.

The more pressing question is how the centre-left can demonstrate how the state can work in conjunction with voluntary organisations and social enterprises to meet the needs of the community. The ‘myth’ that such a partnership is impossible, and that the state poisons all that it touches, must be challenged.

“The ‘myth’ that such a partnership is impossible, and that the state poisons all that it touches, must be challenged.”

The state can do a lot to help these areas, no doubt. But it tends to do wrong when it starts interfering in more practical aspects of the partnership. On this issue of voluntary organisations and social enterprises the state should be nothing more than a funding body, regulating where necessary I’ll concede, that uses objective information to best divert it’s funds.

“the state should be nothing more than a funding body, regulating where ncessary I’ll concede, that uses objective information to best divert its funds”

Agreed. But can’t the state do more than that in enabling such organisations – providing support that extends beyond the financial? This would not be ‘interfering’ but ‘assisting’.

The longterm element of a decision about education is certainly a valid issue, although not insurmountable for markets. The same principle could be applied to any extended contract or expensive service (and people do fall foul in these services too but over time, they improve as the market develops). We also have to bear in mind that the current system of schools, with rigid decisions taken at primary, secondary and 6th form levels, is structured in a way that benefits a bureaucracy. In a more open system, pupils could at least switch schools from one year to the next (perhaps one term to the next), if the education on offer fell short of expectations. And even the potential for pupil movement will encourage schools to adapt so as not to lose pupils.

And of course, parents and guardians play a major role in selecting a school, though in Sweden it was interesting to see how pupils themselves were frequently the prime movers in making a choice. Some will make better decisions than others. What the evidence suggests is that children are better off overall when they and their families have the choice rather than a civil servant. After all, whatever system you have, someone has to decide where a particular child will go.

Possibly, but I think the idea that these organisations need state support beyond funding is a fallacy. You have many organisations in the UK that do a great job of supporting new voluntary bodies, short term programmes, etc. If the government continued to fund the *right* organisations in the UK then indirectly they’d be ensuring a constant level of support and growth for that part of the sector.

Instead these organisations aren’t seen for the worth they have and have eternal struggles with funding of their own. If the state can’t see it’s way to the value of aiding organisations that are there pretty much purely to help sustain the voluntary sector, then why should we believe they’re capable of supporting anyone smaller than that?

The problem with partnerships is that state has the power to offer “assistance” that you can’t refuse. Another problem is that whether it is in the form of funding or guidance, state assistance involves expenditure (from the education budget) that is being decided centrally rather than by schools themselves. And a major problem with the education system as it stands is that priorities and funding are decided centrally. It would be better to push as much funding as possible into the schools themselves and allow them to decide who to engage in partnerships with. If some of those partners are state institutions, then that is great. So long as the choice lies with the school, and the choice of school lies with the pupil/family, then the incentive structure will be correctly aligned.

[14] If you believe that children can get a better education by switching schools every few terms, it’s pretty clear to me that you’re not a parent.

16. I’m not sure how it would work with schools, though I don’t disagree with what you say. I was talking about organisations that rely on funding as a wider sector, but no doubt schools come under that banner.

To clarify [18] – my comments regarding the relationship between state and volutnary sector were not specifically related to education. I may misunderstand but I never intended to suggest that pupils should regularly switch schools. I do not need to be a parent to understand that would be a bad idea.

[16] – “Possibly, but I think the idea that these organisations need state support beyond funding is a fallacy”

I (unsurprisingly) disagree. If you look – for example – at the policy debate surrounding widening participation and access to higher education it is clear that all sectors benefit from a close relationship in which assistance is not only financial but also involves a two-way transfer of knowledge and skills. These are partnerships that go beyond funding and benefit from doing so.

A two way transfer or knowledge and skills involving the state? Care to explain what knowledge and skills the state actually holds that it has to exchange in the area of support for organisations?

It seems to me that it is pointless for the state to try and be that involved. As I’ve said it can fund, and at a push give practical organisational support, organisations that do this job of support much better than it can do itself. I guess there is an argument for what defines the state in this situation, and whether those support organisations become an extension of the state, but like Nick says…if you give these people funding and no interference then they can choose, autonomously, how best to move forward. Why does the state need to be involved in that? What does the state have to offer to be involved in that?

“[14] If you believe that children can get a better education by switching schools every few terms, it’s pretty clear to me that you’re not a parent.”

The point is the power and ability to switch schools, not actually doing so on a regular basis.

Competition doesn’t work by people constantly switching providers. The fact that people are merely permitted to leave or terminate a service encourages existing providers to improve and respond to alternatives. I imagine that parent’s ability to choose would actually make the relationship between school and pupil more stable rather than less so, because that is something that parents evidently want. Currently, however, schools might be shut down or amalgamated against the wishes of parents, due to resource allocations decided centrally.

“Competition doesn’t work by people constantly switching providers.”

Competition doesn’t “work” in the way you mean it full stop, the ability for people to change frequently means the biggest providers simply all offer the same thing. It stagnates rather than encourages progression and development. In an environment like schools where the end-user doesn’t directly pay for it there is little advantage to the type of competition you describe in my view.

Why should that be? It is not how things seem to have panned out when school choice has been introduced along those lines elsewhere. For example, in Sweden there is a wider variety of pedagogies on offer than before and there is some variation even amongst the mainstream schools.

What I’m saying is the act of simply allowing free movement between schools won’t promote better education, it’ll just promote a basic and universal standard of education. That’s what “opening up to competition” does. Now I’m not saying that other aspects of what you’re saying would lift it out of being like that, but the simple situation of people being able to leave one school and join another can’t be a cause of improving education, especially in a field where people actively cannot all go to the best “provider” that exists.

Ah I see, and agree entirely. It is not enough for parents to be able to choose between schools. It must also be possible for new schools to open with relative ease. The idea is that to drive innovation you don’t need to have many families making a choice in any given year, so long as everyone could if they wanted to.

“The question which both right and left need to answer is how the state and civil society can best cooperate to deliver effective social change.”

Unfortunately this is where Sunder falls into the trap which Camerons version of conservatism tries to use rhetorical means to exploit.

Change can bee seen all around us if we choose to look for it and the news agenda is full of initiatives designed to bring about ‘effective change’. Cameron has recognised this fact and has instigated a massive strategic reversal within his party to stop fighting against the flow of agenda-based publicity and has tried instead to tap into it.

It is inevitable that the law of diminishing returns starts to take effect once the political message has been strictly adhered to for the course of a political cycle when the effects of continuing with it start to invert: progress has evolved from modishness to dogma and has infiltrated the language of conservatives, while those that failed to keep one step ahead of the game and keep reiterating the same message as the circumstances changed have consequently and unwittingly evolved into conservatives or are proposing over-extension (I’m looking at you Sunder – which is it?).

We reached that point when Blair stepped down as leader. ‘Effective’ and ’social change’ became terms which were essentially decoupled from each other – either we could consolidate the gains and have effective change, or we could continue pushing for social change to the point where system overload was reached and not even legislation would be effective.

The question for the Conservatives under Cameron is therefore whether they will continue to push for further neeeded changes, hold the ground and consolidate the gains or roll-back those changes which are causing so much aggravation and upset. Unfortunately this is a three-way choice he cannot answer precisely, whether he wanted to or knows how to or not because the picture is so mixed.

On education policy, for example, rural market-towns and medium-size and larger cities have been impacted by the changes in different ways, partly because of their differing geographies, partly because of their differing demographics and partly because of politics – it’s not just that there no ‘one size fits all’ solution, but that any size will cause discomfit for many people – none of whom Cameron can afford to alienate in his quest to win a majority of seats.

It is for similar reasons that Brown is seen to be growing unpopular as he fails to adapt the the challenge of his own making and the backbone of Labour-supporting organisations (ie Sunder’s) try to bind him into sticking on the same territory, against a necessary shift in emphasis.

It’s a pitiable political position all round! But what else should we expect?

Under these circumstances, Brown must be hoping that the storm is not so great that it abates before he is forced to call an election or that the focus of it is forced onto the Conservatives by silly mistakes such as Boris’ mayoral administration is wreaking – either way Brown’s strategic uncertainty is reducing, though whether this changes his odds of staying in power after an election is a different matter.