Free Schools

As explained in the Observer (22.11.09) "Local authorities in England are no longer able to simply open a school, which they then run. Instead, following regulations that came into force in the summer of 2003, they have to put proposals out to tender..The Conservatives want to take things a step further by setting up a Swedish "free-school" system in which the government will fund schools to be run by charities or groups of parents"

Toby Young (pictured) wants to do this and send his children to his new school. In the same Observer article he writes: "We have no doubt that the school we want to set up will be popular with local parents. Its key differentiators will be rigorous setting, high academic expectations and an old fashioned system of pastoral care, with a uniform, houses, etc." In an earlier article (I think in the same paper) he argues that his school will be non-selective, but that children who do not behave will not be tolerated. All this raises some questions:

1. By allowing parents, charities and businesses, who can or want to, open schools, does this undermine the local authority which are under the control of elected local councillors? Does this undermine real local democracy and democratic influence on schools?

2. Toby Young wants his schools to be non-selective, but will his zero-tolerance rule mean that his school will become exclusive? Some children can not behave in the ways that Mr Young will want them to.

3. Will the charities be running the schools for children excluded from Mr Young's school and others like it? Can we expect the return of real Victorian values?

4. Will the 'Free School' break the social class segregation that currently is creeping more and more into our schools, or will it make it worse?

5. Is the Free School movement as advocated by the Tories part of a neo-liberal policy that Tony Blair and New Labour advanced?

Answers on a postcard