to think running state schools for profit is a terrible idea ...

[threefeethighandrising]

... it won't benefit our children but may make some profit for shareholders, which I guess is OK by this government as it's all they really care about?

Article here: Academies and free schools should become profit-making businesses using hedge funds and venture capitalists to raise money, according to ... Michael Gove.

BoneyBackJefferson

faltpack

what are your feelings on schools being run to make a profit?

What matters to me is the quality of the education. Ideological zeal appears to trump all else when you hail from the Left. The only thing I care about are the results that are produced. If profit-run schools do a better job of educating children, particularly those children who are failed by the existing system (the bottom 40% and top 10%), then I welcome them.

YABU if the schools are rubbish and they cut expensive lessons or have poor quality buildings and bad teachers parents will not choose to send their children to those schools.

I have my son's name down to go to a free school (here in Sweden) he will go to a school where the lessons are given in English.

It will give the parents more choice which I can only see as a good thing.

Not all independent schools are charities.

Those that are must use any surplus funds to further their charitable aims, which usually means spending on the school itself.

There have been some problems with free schools in some parts of Sweden, have there not, honeytea?

Primarily to do with overestablishment in certain areas leading to both the free school and the already existing state school being under capacity and therefore underfunded, so instead of one school functioning well you get two schools both functioning badly. And at least one case local to my family of a free school closing very suddenly leaving students stranded in their final year.

honeytea "YABU if the schools are rubbish and they cut expensive lessons or have poor quality buildings and bad teachers parents will not choose to send their children to those schools. "

Yeah, that's how choice works in the UK school system. No-one gets stuck with the crappy school no-one else wants. Oh, wait....

flatpack but there's absolutely no evidence that for-profit schools would improve standards, so why would you 'welcome them', if not from ideological zeal?
Governments of any stripe have a poor record of entering contracts with private providers which end up giving the taxpayer a better deal and/or saving money. I give you PFI, the NHS IT system, consultants ad infinitum...

I live in Stockholm and under capacity schools/dagis don't seem to happen as so many children are being born.

I have worked in both state run and private schools in Stockholm and the private ones were better a long way, I am glad to have the choice as to where to educate my child.

In Sweden your child is guarenteed a place at the local state school, so if there is a high birth year they have to have 2 classes so if a private school is crap the parents will just opt to send their kids to the local state school. No one is forced to go to a private school.

Just to point out its not the UK school system. In Scotland you are entitled to a place at your local school, there are no academies or free schools and only one state school independent of council control.

Thank goodness Gove has no control here!

TabithaStephens do you really think youth unemployment is to do with poor education and not a global recession?
voiceofnoreason I am actually very insulted by your claim that teachers are only interested in furthering their own ends not those of education. Can't you accept that people who are educational professionals might have a more valid and informed view of educational issues than someone who last went into school as a pupil? Can't you see that if teachers are treated like shit (as they are at the moment) then that harms education? Or that teachers went into the job because they wanted to educate and help kids, and, that being so, they won't suddenly become selfish because of a twat like Gove?

this paper, biased against for profit schools suggests there is not sufficient evidence that they improve things.
There is no evidence they make things worse and may improve them, so why not give it a go?

BoulevardOfBrokenSleep

flatpack but there's absolutely no evidence that for-profit schools would improve standards, so why would you 'welcome them', if not from ideological zeal?

Because I'm tired of the appalling standard of state education and I think that it's worth trying something new. It might work. It might not. But the current system of state provision is an abject failure. What's the worst that could happen? Could private primary schools do worse than churn out 20% of 11 year olds who are functionally illiterate, as the state system does?

I suppose you could call what I feel an ideological zeal, because I want the best for Britain's kids. I'm not prepared to sacrifice them on the altar of socialist all-must-have-mediocrity.

Governments of any stripe have a poor record of entering contracts with private providers which end up giving the taxpayer a better deal and/or saving money. I give you PFI, the NHS IT system, consultants ad infinitum...

And when government runs stuff without entering in to contracts with private providers, it does a dismal job too. That seems to indicate to me that the problem here isn't with the providers but the cretins in government who can't write a contract to save their lives.

I would like to say I'm shocked by the naivety of some posters on here but it's par for the course of people who really don't know what they are talking about.

Our school system is amazing, our children are amazing and we have staff who work bloody hard. What we don't have is a government, of either party, who can hold its attention for more than 30 seconds before changing it's mind about almost anything in education that isn't nailed down and even then they turn up with a hammer. Teachers and unions do not make education policy. Ministers do, yet every year or so they convince the public that schools are terrible, teachers are crap or lazy and it's probably the fault of the unions.

Wake up people!

A whole profession is telling you that this, and many other issues, aren't going to work. Yet nobody believes us because we are the ones who know the profession and the sector best. It's total madness.

I have children of my own. Do you think I want them to be in a rubbish school, to have low attainment or to miss out on life's opportunities? What I want is what everyone wants for their children but academies, free schools and pretty much any other initiative from the government isn't going to achieve that. Ministers tell you it will because they want your vote! They couldn't care less if it works or not. Does it sound like people will vote for me because I did xxx? Well we'll do that then.

How does making a profit help children learn? What does it actually bring to the table in practical change that will help children? It doesn't bring anything, it's just another way for people with money to make more money from tax payers. There are only a few ways that a company could make money from a school, the main one being cutting costs. Your major expenditure in a school is staff hence why they are getting rid of the national pay scales. Paying staff less means more profit. It may mean that you can't attract these high calibre candidates we're looking for or that staff with experience leave so younger less able and equipped teachers fill their roles. Hey, you don't need any experience, skills or qualifications to teach since they have removed the need to have qualified staff too.

What we need is education free from political control. Decisions based on evidence and research not political rhetoric. An OFSTED that seeks to improve education not slate it with useless comments made by people who in some cases, never actuality taught themselves. We need a assessment and progress system that parents can understand easily so that they can hold their child's school to account. Why wait for OFSTED that might never come? Parents need to feel empowered to go into school and demand more for their children as and when it is needed. Schools which aren't as accountable to anyone never mind parents isn't going to achieve this.

the point is tabitha is that schools won't improve if they are run for profit. Probably they will get worse. At present, schools' focus is on educating children. In a for-profit system, that primary focus will change to generating returns for investors, with education as a by-product.

Education has for centuries been considered a public good and not a matter of commerce or profit. That is why schools can be charities. Ironically, the pressure is building to take away charitable status too.

To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, education doesn't make money, it is not a commercial enterprise- you put money IN and education comes out... If there are savings and efficiencies to be made, invest the results back into education not into a dividend to shareholders. Also second poster who said leave well alone for 5 bloody minutes and let education professionals do their job.

soapboxqueen

Our school system is amazing, our children are amazing and we have staff who work bloody hard.

And yet we still have 20% of 11 year olds functionally illiterate. I think the word 'amazing' doesn't even begin to cover that statistic.

Toadinthehole

the point is tabitha is that schools won't improve if they are run for profit. Probably they will get worse.

You've got no evidence to prove that it'll get worse or better.

BoneyBackJefferson
what are your feelings on schools being run to make a profit?
voiceofnoreason
Some already are, some produce excellent results. Of course they are quite eye wateringly expensive.

voiceofnoreason
Please could you list the names of those schools for the benefit of the crowd.

Its just that almost all private schools are technically charities, barred by statute from making a "profit" and could be shut down for doing so.

Academy firms have to go through all the hoops of being Charities too - like ARK and Harris and Oasis.

flatpackhamster it's 20% for adults as well so this isn't something that has happened recently. It is also on a par with countries like France. This figure also doesn't take into account children with special needs who may never reach that level or may not do so until much later. Improvements can always be made though.

At any rate, even if I agreed with you about the state of our education system. Selling off schools won't change that and the people who created the system to be like it is, politicians, will still be calling the shots.

If you were going in for an operation and Jeremy hunt came down and said, I'm health Secretary so I'll be tell your surgeon what to do today, would you be happy? Or would you say, actually I'd rather a doctor did the operation because he's done it a few times before?

Teachers and schools make very few decisions with regards to what goes on in schools. If we want change, it needs to come from the top where the responsibility lies. All of these proposed (and sometimes retracted) changes will mean less choice for parents, less accountability and the loss of experience, skill and knowledge as talented people leave and are not replaced.

Functionally illiterate
flatpackhamster please read this Wikipedia page
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy
many of those whose first language is not English are deemed 'functionally illiterate'
Allowing for low immigration levels in Scandinavia, the UK's level looks perfectly reasonable.
The least able 10-15 % will never be able to read well, another 5% are still learning English

does not seem like a failing in the school system to me.

talkinpeace You said it better than me.

Talkinpeace you are wrong about low levels of immigration in Scandinavia, Sweden has close to 15% odors population born in another country ( compared to8ish % in the UK) 86% of Swedish children leave school being able to read, write and speak English. It seems sad to me that Swedish schools seem to be ableto teach not only their own language but also English ( more successfully than British schools) and often a 3rd and sometimes a 4th languagewhilst British schools struggle with teaching English and people blame the low levels on immigration.

Politicians won't ever keep their sticky beaks out because they are responsible for overseeing the reproduction of labour.

I think there are two parts to this drive towards privatisation in education. One is driven by capitalism, a product of the way in which it works. We have a surplus capital absorption problem because we are running out of areas in which to invest. This can be seen globally with investment pouring out of the rich western countries. The other part is related but is both economic and idealogical, where politicians are acting in the interests of the corporate/capitalist class to facilitate the opening up of health and education to investment. For the state, already verging on collapse because of neo-liberal policy, investment is both desirable and necessary.

Gove is not interested in standards within state schools or the life chances of working or M.C children. He is ideologically driven to uphold class inequality. What better way is there to extend inequality, than to shovel public money into the pockets of people of his own class.

What is more interesting is the contradiction privatisation will create. You will have vulture capitalists putting profit before reinvestment, standards dropping and other sectors bemoaning the fact that the replacement labour is lacking in the prerequisite skills. The only winners of course will be the those who get in on the act at the beginning, those left holding these investments in 30 years times will be begging for government welfare.......along with all the school leavers who have been subjected to a cut price education.

honeytea
I stand corrected on immigration numbers but am pretty sure that no part of Scandinavia has as much "churn" as the London Borough of Redbridge.

If you look at that page it mentions that the data is collected in the same way as Pisa data : in that some countries choose not to include SEN children in their tests and data sets

like the lady on AIBU whose 12 year old daughter has just said her first word. Fails on literacy, a HUGE success for the SEN school she attends.

Gove is not interested in standards within state schools or the life chances of working or M.C children. He is ideologically driven to uphold class inequality.
This is utter rubbish!

Tabitha I'm afraid it's not rubbish. Yes Gove says he wants opportunity for all but action speaks louder than words. What he is doing its creating more inequality and less choice for those who need the support most.

If he was bothered about raising standards he would be demanding that all children should have a qualified teacher. He would make policy changes based on evidence not what makes the party happy.

His department blamed teachers and schools for children achieving too much and too little, all in the same week!

It's a joke!