Monday 8 November 2010

Why the state should not run schools; part 94

It is not difficult to turn up evidence of the dumbing down of state schooling. The system has long been held hostage by iron-willed ideologues who wish, as the Fabian window proclaims, to remold society "nearer to the heart's desire" - the heart in this case being of the Conradian variety.

Many of the heretofore intractable problems of state schooling would be swept away in the blink of an eye if the heavy hand of state control was removed. Let schools run their own affairs, let parents choose where they want their children to go, let individuals make decisions, in short; let freedom reign.

There will be winners and losers. The main losers will be all the people currently employed in jobs that are not necessary, within the quangos, commissions and agencies of the state educational leviathan. Also, I don't doubt, a number of school-age children will find themselves without a school prepared to take them, due to their 'challenging behaviour', and the new-found freedom of schools to get rid of the trouble-makers. Nevertheless, nature abhors a vacuum, and free market solutions will arise to cater for such minorities.

The winners will be everyone else; the taxpayers freed from the burden of unnecessary expenditure, the parents and children with more choice, the schools liberated to use common sense and decide things at the lowest level, rather than await instructions from a distant department.

2 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Vouchers.

Next.

Trooper Thompson said...

That would be a great leap in the right direction, if they did it properly.