Free schools: A bail-out for private schools?

By Richard Watts / @richardwatts01

The government’s plan to introduce so-called free schools has not exactly met with a chorus of approval.

Michael Gove considers free schools – a new school set up by parents (or more likely companies/religious groups) that reports directly to the Department for Education – a vital part of the free-market revolution that he wishes to unleash on the education system.

Research by Rebecca Allen at the Institute of Education shows that Swedish free schools tend to benefit the better off and have not lead to across-the-board improvements in the education system.

The current Swedish education minister Bertil Ostberg goes further saying: “We have actually seen a fall in the quality of Swedish schools since the free schools were introduced.”

It’s ironic that just as the Tory-Liberals press ahead with free schools with unnecessary haste, the Swedish are trying to reign them in.

My colleague Jessica Asato points out that free schools could become cover for all sorts of eccentric education providers.

And there is the small issue of the government giving half a million pounds of much needed tax payers’ money to support the development of free schools to a new and untested organisation called the New Schools Network, which just happens to be run by former Gove advisors.

But there is one element of the free schools debate that seems to have been overlooked: the whole scheme could become a bail-out for failing private schools.

The Department for Education’s ‘proposal form’ where groups can express an interest in setting up a free school is revealing. The first substantive question is whether the school in question is already an independent school.

Isn’t this interesting? One assumes that this question is so prominent on the form because they DfE are expecting a lot of applications for free school status from schools that already exist in the independent sector.

I cannot find anywhere a government promise that they will not allow private schools to opt into the state system by becoming free schools. The recession has hit some private schools hard and as standards improve in the state sector more families will not see the point of spending thousands on a private education when the local state schools are better.

If it turns out that a number of private schools do become free schools, the implications would be appalling. Building Schools for the Future and the extension of free school meals to all families in poverty were cancelled to pay for free schools. It would be a disgrace if the money that was destined for some of our most needy families and schools was used instead to prop-up failing private schools.

Other than a few well established groups, there is no evidence that there is a demand from parents for new free schools. It would be tempting for the government to ‘bump up’ the figures for free schools by allowing a series of private schools to join the initiative.

If ministers don’t now rule out accepting any current private school as a free school, then we know where this could be heading.