As Brent Labour ponders whether to set up a free school with a partner in the borough they may be interested in this article in the New Statesman by Lisa Nandy, Labour MP for Wigan.
Andrew Adonis’s argument
in the New Statesman last month that Labour should embrace free schools is selective, outdated and, in part, simply wrong.
In reality, free schools do not have the comprehensive and inclusive
intake he claims. The catchment areas of the first 24 free schools tend
to favour the better off, and consequently are populated by "middle
class suburban people” according to research by the market analysts
CACI. All of them take fewer children on free school meals than
surrounding schools. At the West London Free School, for example, 23 per
cent of pupils are eligible for free lunches, compared with 32 per cent
in the five neighboring schools.
This is not an accident – it is inherent in the free schools model.
The pattern has also emerged in Sweden, which pioneered free schools,
where evidence suggests that free schools increase social segregation
because they are, according to the Swedish Education Minister “generally
attended by children of better educated and wealthy families making
things even more difficult for children attending ordinary schools in
poor areas.”
This backdoor selection is sanctioned by the Secretary of State, who
says free schools must adhere to the admissions code, but allows "agreed
variations", which have only been made public in response to freedom of
information requests.
The problem with focusing only on free schools, as Adonis has done,
is that schools are not islands. Tony Blair said a school “belonged to
itself, for itself.” But schools are part of their community and what
happens in one has an impact on children in another. Adonis ignores the
enormous impact free schools have on other children, based on a model of
surplus places, where good schools flourish and expand while others
wither and die. This is great news for children, unless you happen to be
stuck in a school with spare places and reduced funding while it is
allowed to wither on the grapevine.
Similarly, the amount spent on free schools cannot fail to impact on
other children. The amount spent per pupil in the first free schools is
well above average, in part because the schools are smaller and because
they are running at reduced capacity for the first few years. The West
London Free School, for example, received £12,416 per pupil in its first
year, compared to an average of £7,064. In addition, the set up costs
are huge.
The first round of capital funding amounted to £50 million
which included £14 million for just one school building. Total capital
costs for just the first 24 schools will range from £100-£130 million
whilst nearly 100 civil servants are working on the free schools
initiative in Whitehall. At a time when other schools are facing a real
terms cut to their budgets over the next 3 years this seems shockingly
unfair.
Adonis rightfully acknowledges the importance of teachers, as most
politicians do, but is anyone actually listening to them? He argues for
more centrally driven change, but visit any classroom across the country
and teachers will tell you they are sick and tired of central reform.
The international evidence is clear, that autonomy and accountability
work. But that points us away from Michael Gove’s free schools model
which has taken away local accountability in the form of the local
authority and centralised power in the hands of the Secretary of State.
We should be handing more power to teachers, not to Gove, increasing,
not reducing local accountability and improving collaboration, not
competition for places, so that children – particularly the most
disadvantaged - are not left behind.
In practice this would mean teachers having more flexibility to
decide what, how and when they teach. They might, for example, choose to
teach by ability not year groups, and other forms of innovation that
should be possible in any school, regardless of structure. It should be
coupled with investment in lifelong learning and serious thinking about
what happens to children outside the classroom, which matters above all
to the children who most need our help.
Adonis looks to Singapore for lessons, but on a select committee
visit to the country this year, ministers told us they were keen to
learn from Britain about how to better equip their children for life and
for the workforce. Similarly, Finland, which we visited last year,
succeeds because of the status, pay and conditions of teachers, yet free
schools can use unqualified teachers and are not required to adhere to
national pay and conditions agreements. Michael Wilshaw, who Adonis
cites as a champion of this model, was critical of the use of
unqualified teachers at a recent appearance before the education select
committee.
Adonis seems to have bought into Gove’s vision – that introducing
competition, taking away "bureaucracy" and pursuing a relentless
academic vision allows the brightest young people to do well, regardless
of background. Gove ignores - and indeed has removed help for - the
enormous practical barriers that exist for those children.
Free schools are part of that vision. To paraphrase Andy Burnham,
it’s a vision for some children, and some schools, not all children and
all schools. Labour can do better than that.
Lisa Nandy is the Labour MP for Wigan.
