Labour's diagnosis of British education hasn't changed since Corbyn; that's why their prescription will only make matters worse. Market structure analysis tells us to do....anything but this!
Obviously, offering parents a voucher towards the cost of their children’s education would be a good way of increasing parental choice and expanding the offerings available. To be redeemed in a state school at no extra cost, or a private one at variable extra cost depending on the bells & whistles offered.
I would go further and say that the long term goal of policy should not be the 100% State provision to which Labour obviously aspires but 100% private.
If you are going to hand out vouchers, which I absolutely support, to deal with the financing side of education why do you need any State “free at the point of provision” schools? Let a thousand flowers bloom, each unique in its own way and free from the hands of ministers, all of which should be potentially available to all through the voucher.
And once we’ve got education under way, let’s tackle health with its own at least 93% monopoly….
Loads of countries subsidise private education and school choice via some form of voucher or tax break. The bible on this IMO is James Tooley's "The Beautiful Tree". Also
One of my clients who is very tolerant of my endless complaining on this subject mentioned he’d educated his kids at an independent school in Les Gets (he was having a couple of years “working” from the mountains). That school was funded by the state, demanded a small additional contribution in money and a fairly significant contribution of parent engagement in school life (according to parent’s metier). There was another nearby demanding more money and less in-kind contribution. You can see why a government whose instinct is to control everything would hate this. Such measures demand some thinking to avoid entrenching the disadvantage of those with disengaged parents but with enough choice being exercised they’d quickly run out of duff schools to default their children into.
We all have an interest in supporting children with disengaged parents (and in doing something much harder, which is stopping encouraging disengaged parenthood). But there is no moral justification for making it harder for highly engaged parents to do the highly pro-social activity of setting their children up to succeed.
It's like "boo hiss to all those polite, disciplined, ambitious young people".
Here's what I put in ChatGPT, an informative exercise!!
"Produce a market analysis of the following. There is a state-funded monopolist with 93% market share, offering a service "free at point of delivery". 7% of the market is served by small firms. Customers face significant information challenges, relationships are long-term, and switching costs are high. There are barriers to entry in terms of regulation, real estate, track record and customer lifecycle duration.
Your answer should illustrate the nature of competition between the small firms, and whether they compete on price, as well as between the small firms and the monopolist. Please also comment on the quality of the monopolist's provision."
Vouchers are a great idea, but it might take years to get the Labour Party to see this.
In the mean time surely concentrating politically on the effects of the removal of the VAT Exemption on the cheaper/smaller end of the independent market could be useful.
A little story.....
Little Mary has SEN, undiagnosed....and is so happy in her class of 10 at her small independent school....all the parents of kids at this small institution are middle class, just like Labour MPs.....VAT will shut her small school down...jobs will be lost tax revenues fall and overall the Govt would have been better off by leaving Mary's school Exempt from VAT..
There are several small independent schools in Devon, my daughter went to one of them 10 years back, there were many families with children like Mary ten years ago, i imagine things have not changed much except now there is a lot more home ed,
I wish you were capable of making an original observation and backing it up with theory or evidence, instead of (when asked for theory or evidence) resorting immediately to insults.
Obviously, offering parents a voucher towards the cost of their children’s education would be a good way of increasing parental choice and expanding the offerings available. To be redeemed in a state school at no extra cost, or a private one at variable extra cost depending on the bells & whistles offered.
I would go further and say that the long term goal of policy should not be the 100% State provision to which Labour obviously aspires but 100% private.
If you are going to hand out vouchers, which I absolutely support, to deal with the financing side of education why do you need any State “free at the point of provision” schools? Let a thousand flowers bloom, each unique in its own way and free from the hands of ministers, all of which should be potentially available to all through the voucher.
And once we’ve got education under way, let’s tackle health with its own at least 93% monopoly….
Interesting. Do any countries take this approach?
Loads of countries subsidise private education and school choice via some form of voucher or tax break. The bible on this IMO is James Tooley's "The Beautiful Tree". Also
https://iea.org.uk/publications/school-choice-around-the-world/
https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/types-of-school-choice/what-are-school-vouchers-2/
https://www.vox.com/politics/23689496/school-choice-education-savings-accounts-american-federation-children
PTAs gift aiding is an interesting point. Threaten those and you erode the popular (ignorant) support this measure attracts.
One of my clients who is very tolerant of my endless complaining on this subject mentioned he’d educated his kids at an independent school in Les Gets (he was having a couple of years “working” from the mountains). That school was funded by the state, demanded a small additional contribution in money and a fairly significant contribution of parent engagement in school life (according to parent’s metier). There was another nearby demanding more money and less in-kind contribution. You can see why a government whose instinct is to control everything would hate this. Such measures demand some thinking to avoid entrenching the disadvantage of those with disengaged parents but with enough choice being exercised they’d quickly run out of duff schools to default their children into.
Quite agree.
We all have an interest in supporting children with disengaged parents (and in doing something much harder, which is stopping encouraging disengaged parenthood). But there is no moral justification for making it harder for highly engaged parents to do the highly pro-social activity of setting their children up to succeed.
It's like "boo hiss to all those polite, disciplined, ambitious young people".
FFS.
Here's what I put in ChatGPT, an informative exercise!!
"Produce a market analysis of the following. There is a state-funded monopolist with 93% market share, offering a service "free at point of delivery". 7% of the market is served by small firms. Customers face significant information challenges, relationships are long-term, and switching costs are high. There are barriers to entry in terms of regulation, real estate, track record and customer lifecycle duration.
Your answer should illustrate the nature of competition between the small firms, and whether they compete on price, as well as between the small firms and the monopolist. Please also comment on the quality of the monopolist's provision."
Vouchers are a great idea, but it might take years to get the Labour Party to see this.
In the mean time surely concentrating politically on the effects of the removal of the VAT Exemption on the cheaper/smaller end of the independent market could be useful.
A little story.....
Little Mary has SEN, undiagnosed....and is so happy in her class of 10 at her small independent school....all the parents of kids at this small institution are middle class, just like Labour MPs.....VAT will shut her small school down...jobs will be lost tax revenues fall and overall the Govt would have been better off by leaving Mary's school Exempt from VAT..
If you know of true stories like this, please put me in touch with Mary's parents.
There are several small independent schools in Devon, my daughter went to one of them 10 years back, there were many families with children like Mary ten years ago, i imagine things have not changed much except now there is a lot more home ed,
It's what it says.
And do you think if state school faced competition, that some of our grossly underperforming schools would last another week?
If, as you say, for-profit firms do such a bad job, how do they survive? What examples do you have in mind?
I wish you were capable of making an original observation and backing it up with theory or evidence, instead of (when asked for theory or evidence) resorting immediately to insults.