Educationally, we seem to be stuck, in this country. Lots (not all) people feel the comprehensive system doesn't work well enough. Lots (not all) people like grammar schools as an alternative - sometimes because it seems to be the only alternative on offer, see recent thread. Lots (not all) people hate that idea. Lots (not all) people go private, or wish to go private, to avoid perceived deficiencies.
Any solution has to be politically acceptable, as well as rational.
Here's a proposal I might call pupil premium on steroids.
Every pupil has an "educational cost" attached to them. This cost is higher if the pupil lives in a historically deprived post code (perhaps in several bands). It is higher if the pupil has diagnosed SEN (definitely in several bands). Add your own criteria here (discuss).
State school places are allocated more or less as now, with the modification: the school's funding is the sum of the funding allocated to all its pupils (perhaps plus a basic allocation for stability: discuss). The money doesn't have to be spent specifically on the child who brings it (optionally, we also keep PP: discuss). The effect is that schools with more deprived intake are automatically better funded, and so middle-class parents have an incentive to choose mixed-intake schools, thus discouraging segregation.
To make this acceptable to Tory voters: you can also take your child's educational cost to an independent school, topping up to the fee level from your own purse to what the school charges - but what you can take is discounted by say 20% (discuss), eg if your child's educational cost is £5k per annum, you get £4k pa off the school fees, and the state saves £1k compared to having to educate your child. At the same time, independent schools are encouraged to take more deprived pupils (topping up with bursaries) because they take less bursary funding than middle-class bursary recipients. For particular combinations of SEN and deprivation, the educational cost might fully meet the independent school fees: that is, the state might outsource the education of this pupil, as occasionally happens now, but more systematically.
Do you vote for that? Why, or why not? What would need to be changed to make it work?
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A politically acceptable proposal?
106 replies
heritager · 23/08/2016 20:33
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2StripedSocks ·
25/08/2016 08:29
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2StripedSocks ·
25/08/2016 09:11
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