Niklas Smith August 2010
3Sandström reports on three studies that address this question. Björklund et al. found noevidence that total costs either increased or decreased as a result of competition from freeschools, while Waldo found that competition from free schools improves efficiency rather thanworsening it. Sandström’s own study also suggests that competition lowers costs but he feelsthe results are not robust and so leans towards Björklund’s conclusion.
11
It is also important to point out that there are many parts of England where there iscurrently a shortage of school places, for example in primary schools in London andCambridge.
12
Free schools could play a useful role in making sure that every child has a schoolplace where local authorities are unable or unwilling to provide enough new places. Indeed, inHungary and the Czech Republic researchers found that new private schools founded to takeadvantage of the voucher system were concentrated in areas where there was a shortage of places and where the state schools were of poor quality – in other words, precisely where theywere most needed.
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We can conclude that allowing non-governmental groups to set upschools with public funding does not pose a significant risk of wasting public money.
Criticism 2: “Free schools would make the already complex admissions systemeven more complex, so only a few pushy parents would be able to makechoices”
*
The current school admissions code is 97 pages long (!), with a 43-page appeals codefor those defeated by the Byzantine admissions system.
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This is largely a consequence of giving schools some control over which pupils they choose to admit. This admissions processis a political decision, not an inevitable consequence of school choice. In Sweden free schoolshave virtually no latitude to reject pupils, and if oversubscribed they must allocate places onthe basis of existing siblings in the school, geographical proximity or time of application.
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American charter schools are required by law to “conduct fair and open admissions, and recruitall segments of the community they serve.” When they are oversubscribed many use a ballot toallocate places.
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It is certainly possible to have a simple admissions system while alsoallowing free schools.In practice, most parents seem to be capable of making active choices when these areoffered by their school system. For example, in Edmonton (the capital and second largest cityof Alberta, Canada) the local school board abolished catchment areas and allowed pupils to goto any public school in the city, while also giving public schools much more autonomy andallowing new schools to be opened under the school board’s umbrella. 57% of pupils havemade the choice to attend a different school from their neighbourhood school, and presumablya number of pupils who do attend their nearest school made an active choice to do so.
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The Liberal Democrat policy paper “Equity and Excellence” rightly points out thatselection does not improve standards across the education system and it is party policy to banstate-funded schools from selecting by aptitude and prevent any extension of selection byability or faith.
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The implementation of this policy along with clear admissions criteria such asthose that apply in Sweden and the USA would significantly simplify the admissions system.
There is no reason why the establishment of free schools should make admissions morecomplicated, and we can conclude that parents are able to make informed choices.
Criticism 3: “Free schools increase social divisiveness and inequity andabandon the goal of high quality education for all learners”
†
Before moving on to the effects of free schools on social segregation and inequality, itis worth pointing out that the current primary school admissions system, which usually givespriority to families living nearest to a school, is hardly fair. Researchers have repeatedly found
*
This section addresses point 4 in the conference motion.
†
This section addresses points 2 and 5 in the conference motion.
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