“Yes to greater diversity; yes to more choice for parents. But no to running schools for profit, not in our state-funded education sector.” (Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister)
There’s some muddled thinking at the heart of the Coalition policy on schools, and it’s that education is the ONE area of government that can’t allow the private sector in to boost capacity, increase efficiency AND make a profit.
We applaud profit in the corporate sector because it allows companies to expand, and attracts capital to set up the capacity in the first place.
New schools and school buildings sure need capital, which can’t just be borrowed by the state on unaffordable PFI deals. So why would we want to close off the most effective way of raising capital for all these new schools?
Yes, there are reasonable concerns that free schools will be secretly selective (on the grounds on religion, academic results or otherwise). But the correct response to this is rules about admissions that apply to ALL state-funded schools. It’s not about profit versus not-for-profit.
The main objection to generating a profit (and the management incentives that go with it) is that it focuses the school leadership on the wrong objective. But since the free schools’ main income stream will be per-pupil state funding, they will have every incentive to attract more pupils the school by the usual routes – good academic results, good facilities, motivated staff.
If we can sub-contract Britain’s nuclear weapon research to for-profit companies without comprising safety or security, what’s so tricky about drawing up the rules for the local primary school?
“I cant believe any right thinking person can think profits from schools is right. Why? Its simple for a given amount of money less will be spent on the core objective because as much as possible will be wanted as profits and fat cat wages.” (Darren Shepperd, comment on BBC article)
Let’s be clear that generating a profit NEED NOT mean less spending on educational outcomes. If we nationalised highly profitable companies such as Tesco or Unilever overnight I think we could agree that the removed profit margin would rapidly disappear in inefficiency rather than being ploughed back into lower prices for consumers – just look at USSR in the 1970s.
Schools aren’t like supermarkets, but they are enterprises. They have to generate outcomes (educational results) from limited resources and budget (teachers’ salaries and facilities cost mainly).
If generating a profit helps the best free school provide better outcomes for inner-city children on the same budget then bring it on!
