Dear Adam
2nd April 2003
You want independent schools abolished. In fact, you want to see all selective schools abolished, and for all schools to become truly comprehensive state schools. This is set out with admirable clarity in your new book How not to be a Hypocrite: School Choice for the Morally Perplexed Parent. Fair enough. But your argument is stuck in the 1960s. The debate has moved on and new ways of trying to combine equity and liberty are being worked out.
Let me begin by saying where we agree, which may be more than you think. I worry greatly about the growing gulf between independent and state schools. Labour education policy has helped to raise standards in the state sector, but independent schools have been improving even faster. There is no more serious divide in British society and there is no greater waste of the nation's human resources than in the poor quality of too much state education.
It is wrong that the most privileged children in Britain are the ones who enjoy the most privileged education. Children in independent schools have twice as much spent on them per head as those in state schools. The teacher-pupil ratio averages 1:10 compared to 1:17 in state secondaries and 1:23 in state primaries. It is unsurprising, then, that children from independents, 7 per cent of the total, account for 29 per cent of the entry to top universities.
Inequalities relate not just to academic performance. Children at independent schools enjoy sporting and cultural opportunities beyond the imagination of almost all in state schools. It is true that some state schools produce fine choirs, like the London Oratory, or turn out fine sporting sides, like Campion in Essex. But in state schools, sport and the arts are for the highly motivated few; in independent schools, they are for the masses. Brighton College, where I am headmaster, is not unique in having over half its pupils turning out on some Saturdays to play for the school in their chosen sports. There are plays, musicals, choirs, bands, orchestras, magazines, art and photography to suit all interests. The pupils are nurtured not only in small classes, but also in small pastoral groups. Teachers know not only the child, but also the family. Antisocial behaviour is smartly stood upon. The atmosphere is calm and orderly.
Children at independent schools thus have the chance to develop what Howard Gardner calls their "multiple intelligences" (including their sporting, aesthetic and interpersonal aptitudes). Such children then go on to the best universities, and into the most highly paid and influential jobs.
We agree, I imagine, on the above. Our disagreements, however, are fundamental. I do not accept that the hypothetical good that might come from destroying excellent schools is enough to compensate for the denial of choice, to parents and children, in compelling all children to attend the same school system. We should level up, not down. Each school should aspire to the excellence of the best independent schools. Moreover, I do not see where your argument about unfair advantage would stop: why not ban theatre, concerts, cultural trips, and so on, all of which are enjoyed disproportionately by the children of the better off?
Your book has little to say about why the independent sector is so successful and popular (according to Social Trends, 635,000 children were in private schools in 2001-2). I know. Each week, I see refugees from the state sector in my study, eager to join. Many of the things they want-the academic performance, the discipline, the opportunities beyond the classroom-can be emulated by good state schools. But none of the latter have the freedom of independents. Experience suggests that organisations function best when leaders are given a high degree of autonomy to run their own affairs.
And forcing children to attend uniform state schools would not provide the integrated social experience that you seek. Schools reflect their catchment areas. Only bussing children from affluent to non-affluent areas would produce the mix you want, but that is not politically feasible.
You are very keen, finally, on making moral judgements on the actions of others. I want to turn the tables. You would abolish independent and selective state schools. Yet your students at Balliol College are almost all the products of such schools. Why not extend your arguments from primary and secondary up to higher education? Why not abolish Balliol?
But the behaviour that really sticks in my craw is when middle-class families exploit the system by moving their homes into the catchment areas of desirable state schools and pay to have their children tutored to pass entrance exams-while believing they are morally superior to those who use the independent sector. Why should parents at Brighton College pay our school fees, which often involve real sacrifices, while also paying through their taxes for middle-class parents to use desirable state schools, some of whom also then claim the moral high ground?
The educational divide is one that no British government has solved; most have not even tried. The present government is at least trying to improve the state sector enough to wean parents away from independent schools. To this end, it is creating specialist secondary schools in fields like technology or languages. This is a laudable objective, but it will not succeed unless funding levels and ethos compare with that of independents.
Partnerships between the two sectors need more powerful support than Charles Clarke is offering. But the only lasting way to narrow the divide is to give all schools independence. Means testing all parents, making them contribute an affordable element to their child's education, is the best way to blur the divide. You want independent schools abolished. Independent schools work. The state sector does not work adequately, after 130 years of trying. I want to abolish the state sector.
Yours
Anthony
Dear Anthony
11th April 2003
I'm glad you agree that our education system is morally objectionable. But I can't say I'm surprised. It is obviously unfair that children's prospects in life should depend on their parents' ability and willingness to buy them the advantages you describe. Still, I'm very glad that some of those in the business of providing private education are willing to acknowledge the problem and engage with it.
How not to be a Hypocrite is primarily aimed at consumers, or potential consumers, of what you supply. They, too, surely notice that the structure of options available to parents is unfair and divisive. Some of them notice it enough to feel uncomfortable about buying all the good things you offer. But they may also feel bad about depriving their children of those same good things. Why should children suffer for their parents' principles? Isn't it a parent's duty to do the best for his or her children? My book explores 20 different reasons to go private. It argues that those opposed to our unfair educational system are not necessarily acting hypocritically when they opt out of the local state school. They may even be justified in doing so; it depends on the circumstances.
I want to abolish private schools. You want to abolish the state sector. I'm not as hostile to your idea as you might expect. But first, let me respond to some of your points.
In your view, abolishing private schools would deny parents choice of how to spend their money, destroy excellent schools, and would be a form of levelling down. I accept the first two charges. Sometimes freedom of choice is morally fundamental. Depriving people of choice about religion and sexuality, for example, would violate essential human interests. But no such interest requires us to permit parents to spend their money on their children's education.
Whether a school is excellent depends on the criteria one is judging it by, and I do not accept that academic success or high standards of sporting or artistic achievement are the only relevant ones. There are many reasons to send one's children to state school that have nothing to do with social justice and everything to do with what would be best, all things considered, for the children themselves. Still, I accept that some private schools help children reach very high standards and that something would be lost in their absence. Like you, I value academic excellence, but care also that all should have a fair chance of achieving it. I don't think that permitting private schools is the only way to produce the kind of excellence that matters. Do you? If so, how do you explain the scholarly, sporting and artistic achievements in all those countries where private schools are patronised only by those who can't hack it in the state system?
The levelling down objection takes us to the heart of the issue. CP Snow justified sending his son to Eton on the ground that he didn't believe in "cutting down the tall poppies." The metaphor suggests that egalitarians are merely envious of those who stand out from the crowd. But that is to misunderstand the case against private education. That case depends on seeing why abolishing independent schools would improve things for the 93 per cent who don't go to them. If that's right, one would be lowering the ceiling in order to raise the floor. That's not levelling down.
Education is, in part, a positional good: one's education leaves one better or worse placed in the competition for other desirable things-places at good universities, desirable jobs. Preventing some people from buying positional advantage increases the value of the education received by the rest. Politicians are keen to talk about increasing opportunities for all. They are less keen to accept that increasing opportunities for some means reducing them for others-although the recent fuss over university admissions suggests that that implication is becoming clearer.
I'm not persuaded that things are as bad as you think in the state sector. But, in so far as there are problems, don't you think they might have something to do with our private schools? Allowing affluent and influential parents to opt out is just the way to produce the inequalities and failings that you dislike. Add in peer group effects-the fact that children's educational achievements depend, in part, on who they go to school with-and it is surely clear that our private sector has a depressing effect on state provision.
You want every school to aspire to the excellence of the best independent schools. But unless you envisage a massive increase in resources and think that all schools can attract the kind of children who currently go private, it's hard to see how they are supposed to realise that aspiration.
You are right that parents do all kinds of things to, with, or for their children that tend to help or hinder them, relative to others, and I'm not suggesting that we should ban all of them. Of course parents should be able to interact freely with their children, reading them bedtime stories, taking them to art galleries, and so on. I just don't see that abolishing private education would violate anything genuinely essential to family life, and my proposal would lead to the cultural advantages enjoyed by some rubbing off on the others. The fact that abolition would not level the playing field completely is hardly a reason not to do what we can.
Every day I watch buses deliver children to private schools in Oxford from far and wide. Their parents don't object to this. The best objection to bussing points to the desirability of schools being part of the local community-though independent schools don't care too much about that. But the idea that bussing means trouble seems to be based on things that happened in Boston in the 1970s. Today it is widely practised in the US and is less controversial. The alternative to bussing is a funding formula that gives more to the educationally deprived, as in Holland.
Although parents do not have the right to go private, I do think that parental choice can be an effective mechanism for raising standards. Much of what is currently unfair is that some parents have choices while others don't. It's the injustice that's objectionable, not the private provision of education as such. Can the market provide what we both want? Suitably regulated, it may be able to.
The trick is to reap the benefits of consumer choice while avoiding unproductive inequalities of opportunity. Your solution - means-tested fees in all schools - won't do the job. That's partly because means testing gives the advantaged an interest in reducing the extent and eligibility of the means-tested benefit. But it is mainly because means testing won't give you fairness. To get that, you'd need to cap the amount that parents are permitted to spend on any school and prevent schools selecting the easily educable. An egalitarian voucher scheme: parental choice, no top-ups, equal resources devoted to each child, private schools competing for children but admitting randomly from those that apply. That looks like a morally serious proposal.
Best wishes
Adam
Dear Adam
22nd April 2003
The educational divide in 2003 is wider than ever and many other independent school heads are uncomfortable with it. The extra money government is putting into state schools this year is mostly being eaten up by staff salaries, pensions and national insurance, and is likely to be eclipsed anyway by the extra money coming into independent schools, which are levying big fee increases.
The chances of disadvantaged children entering higher education are lower now than 30 years ago. And the government is so alarmed by the continuing dominance of independent school children at top universities that it wants to see positive discrimination in favour of those from less advantaged backgrounds.
Yes, I do agree that creaming off children into independent schools impoverishes the state sector. And, despite improved pay, teachers flowing from the state sector to independents remain a problem. Resources are a key ingredient to the success of the independent sector. But they are not the only reason for its success.
So let me give you my three-point solution. First, coerce or strongly encourage state and independent schools to form partnerships, to include teacher and pupil exchanges, sharing of resources and expertise, and joint activities (social, sporting, cultural). Second, give all state schools their independence, so they can experience the empowerment and energy of freedom. "Teachers are not trusted to teach," Philip Pullman said at the Oxford literary festival. "They are nagged, controlled, harrassed. They have to be inspected all the time. Set them free. Trust them." Quite.
Each school would have to stand on its own feet and be given responsibility to make its own way-along the lines of grant-maintained schools in the state sector. Local education authorities should be abolished with their residual functions being centralised. But the centre itself should not have a big role beyond providing finance, a legal and exam framework, and ensuring that no school is too large-a key flaw with state schools.
This brings me back to my favourite solution: means test all parents so that those who can afford to pay do pay, by repealing the 1918 Act which abolishes schools' ability to charge fees. Some schools, such as St Marylebone Church of England school, are already breaching the Act, by asking parents to pay ?100 to prevent teacher redundancies. Along with the financial benefit will come deeper involvement and higher expectations. Fees will also be lower in schools with more disadvantaged pupils. Gasworks comp will charge the affluent, say ?1,000 a year, while Leafy Lane college will charge, say ?5,000-with some of that being redistributed to poorer schools. Means testing will bring more money overall into the system, as parents will happily pay more if their children are the main beneficiaries.
The debate has moved on from the 1960s. Abolition of the independent sector is off the agenda; it is even expressly ruled out by the European convention on human rights. We have to find other ways forward.
Yours ever
Anthony
Dear Anthony
29th April 2003
It is not the European convention on human rights that has taken abolition off the political agenda. It is the politics that has changed since the 1960s, not the law. In any case, although I've often heard it said, it is far from clear that the convention does rule out abolition. It states that parents have the right to ensure that their children are educated and taught "in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions." Why do you need private schools to ensure that?
Although abolition is my first-best solution, and I don't want the case for that to disappear altogether, I accept that it isn't going to happen soon. So let's turn, as you suggest, to more realistic suggestions, tailoring our proposals to what we think the electorate might stomach. You ignored my egalitarian voucher scheme. That is the best way to combine the benefits of the market with anything approaching equality of opportunity. Perhaps you judge that politically impossible too. You may be right.
Still, we can do better than your three-point solution. By all means, if we do have to put up with independent schools, make their charitable status conditional on their forming partnerships with the state sector. But I would go further, requiring them to take a random sample of those who apply. Parents who wanted to buy their children an unusually expensive education would still be able to. But they wouldn't be able to buy their children the stimulation that comes from being surrounded by unusually bright and motivated kids.
Perhaps that's still too radical? If private schools must be allowed to choose their customers, then at least get them to use decent criteria. Belvedere school in Liverpool now admits students on the basis of their academic ability rather than their parents' ability to pay. (The Sutton trust contributes to the fees of those who need help.) I don't endorse that kind of selection either, but if we have to reconcile ourselves to some children going to expensive schools then, on efficiency grounds alone, it should be the able rather than the wealthy who receive the extra investment. The assisted places scheme did little to alter the socially exclusive character of the independent sector. If private schools admitted purely on ability, then our educational culture would quickly change. Well-off parents of average children would have an interest in improving things for the majority.
We agree (with Philip Pullman) about excessive regulation. But I want to offer a word in defence of the testing and inspection regime. I suspect that it has done something to raise standards at the bottom end and is especially resented by parents of children able enough not to need that kind of improvement in the basics. Still, I do think that regimentation has gone too far and is repelling good teachers. That is an argument for a lighter touch, not for wholesale dismantling of the state system.
Evidently you don't like middle-class parents, who can afford to pay, getting good state schools for free and then feeling morally superior. I agree. So I take it your means-testing idea will make them pay well over cost, and some of the excess would be used to subsidise the needy. I'm all for redistributing, but I'm not sure why you think your scheme would be fairer, or bring in more money, than progressive general taxation. A few prestigious schools may yield their customers such a huge return that well-off parents would be willing to pay over the odds, thereby contributing extra money (extra to what they would be willing to contribute in general tax) which can be used to help the education of the badly off. But I'm not convinced that the education system as a whole could operate on that basis. Why will those who won't pay more tax to help the less fortunate be content to see their school fees being redistributed?
Finally, you think that comprehensives have failed. I accept that there are serious problems in big cities, especially London (where 13 per cent of children go private). But in rural and suburban areas, and where they don't have to cope with the best pupils being creamed off into private or grammar schools, they are a success. Those who see comprehensives as a failure forget what secondary moderns were like. It's also a myth that more and more parents are going private: the number has been static for several years. Considering the growth in affluence it is perhaps surprising that more parents are not going private; it supports my view that the state system is not so bad.
Best
Adam
Dear Adam
3rd May 2003
Means testing is my solution and I believe it will come within the next ten years, but I am not against vouchers. Graham Able at Dulwich College advocates them. I can see real benefits in allowing parents and children to choose schools, from the full range available. It works well in Milwaukee. Our point of difference on vouchers is that I would favour parents being able to top-up vouchers for more expensive schools if they wanted. Why can't families choose to spend extra money on their children's education rather than on a larger house?
I suspect our underlying difference is our view of human nature. I believe it is basically selfish, and that each person wants the best for themselves and their families. My solutions of partnership, means testing and independence for all chime best with that reading of human nature, without ignoring the claims of social justice.
Yours
Anthony
Dear Anthony
5th May 2003
I do not dislike all independent schools, only the ones that allow parents to buy their children an unfair advantage. It's the unfairness, not the independence, that's the problem. The Milwaukee voucher scheme does seem to work well and I am encouraged that British policymakers are studying it. But it doesn't support your case. That scheme applies only to disadvantaged families and forbids both topping-up and selection.
The case for the market mechanism in education is stronger when it is not confused with the idea that parents must be free to spend what they like. In the US, the average cost of going private is half what the state spends, not twice, as it is here. Most private schools are religious and educate poor children. We must be very careful when applying to here voucher lessons learned from America.
It seems I didn't persuade you that there is a moral difference between buying a larger house and buying an expensive education. I'm surprised, also, since you accept that creaming off by the independent sector lowers standards elsewhere. But I am not sure you do think that the educational inequalities that would survive your reforms are justified. I suspect your view is rather that we have to put up with them-because human nature is "selfish," or because the affluent will always protect their privileges. But there's a world of difference between the morally defensible and the politically feasible, and it doesn't help to confuse the two.
Nor, though, does it help much to pine for some improbable utopia. I accept that we need proposals more realistic than abolition, on the one hand, or a no top-up, no selection, voucher system, on the other. So here are my top two second-best suggestions. First, vouchers for the disadvantaged (as in Milwaukee) may improve standards where they most need improving. Second, the Sutton Trust's idea that we persuade the top 100 independent day schools to admit on merit-government helping with fees where needed-would at least give us fair selection criteria, and send shockwaves through the rest of the system.
Good luck trying to persuade independent school heads that they owe something to the less fortunate. Remind them that public schools are so called because they were founded for the free education of the poor.
Best
Adam
